STRAIGHTENING Tower of Pisa

STRAIGHTENING Tower of Pisa

Straightening up: Pisa's leaning tower before the stabilisation works in 1992 (L) and at the end of the works in 2010 (R). Since the works, the tower's tilt has decreased even more.Its perilous incline has defied gravity since the 12th century.But now the Leaning Tower of Pisa has lost some of its famous tilt, researchers have found.

An annual report on the monument’s stability has revealed that the tower had spontaneously recovered some of its vertical incline-straightening by 2.5cm since 2001.The straightening is not a miracle, but the long term effect of an 11-year restoration project completed in 2001.SOURCE

STRAIGHTENING Tower of Pisa

The tour was reopened in 2011 without scaffolding for the first time in 20 years following the completion of the previous year's stabilising works

STRAIGHTENING Tower of Pisa

The works included excavating under the tower in attempt to coax it gently back towards the vertical

Giuseppe Bentivoglio, technical director of the monument, said the tower’s lean towards the south is shrinking.
The structural engineer explained: ‘The tower is moving. It is straightening towards the north. Between 2001 and 2013 it has recovered 2.5 cm of its incline.'
Mr Bentivoglio claimed the move was ‘expected’.
‘According to studies by researchers at Stuttgart University with whom we worked, the tower will continue to straighten another couple of millimetres and then stabilise before starting to lean again, but at a much slower rate than before.’
He added: ‘In theory it would be possible to straighten it completely.'

STRAIGHTENING Tower of Pisa

The tower's stabilising involved years of work, including emergency temporary steel cables, excavation of soil and digging wells to drain water

STRAIGHTENING Tower of Pisa

The Tower in 1934: Experts discovered that the Tower of Pisa was leaning more and more early last century

A view of Pisa's Piazza dei Miracoli (Miracles' square) in 2001. It had recently been opened to the public for the first time after being closed for more than a decade