A New Slant on Pisa

For many tourists, Pisa comes as a mere snack compared with the more elegant and nourishing Florence, its glamorous sister on the Arno River in the bella Italia region of Tuscany.

This is not completely unjustified. If push comes to shove, which it generally does when touring Italy, Pisa can be reduced to a one-site destination.

But what a site that is.

Known formally as the Campo dei Miracoli, or Field of Miracles, it includes not only the unforgettable Torre Pendente (Leaning Tower) but also the magnificent Romanesque Duomo (cathedral) and Battistero (baptistery), a threesome that every guidebook lists among the most impressive sights in Italy. It is made more so because they are surrounded by manicured green lawns from which the admiring hordes are politely excluded.

Now visitors will have even more reason to linger in Tuscany’s “second” city. After 12 years of renovations, the tower was scheduled to reopen Saturday, much to the delight of the local community and post-Sept. 11 tourists, who may be cheered by the way Pisa has overcome a world that tilted. They will once again be able to scale the circular interior stairwell and experience the same gravitational attraction that is said to have lured astronomer Galileo Galilei, Pisa’s most famous son.

In the early 1970s, I climbed the internal cylindrical staircase and was surprised to find how steep the tilt, how quickly one picked up momentum coming out the doorway at each level, and especially how interesting it was that there were no guardrails.

Rails were finally installed in the ‘80s, but that was all that was done to counter the pull of gravity until December 1989, when an even younger bell tower that wasn’t leaning collapsed in the northern city of Pavia, killing four people. The next month the Leaning Tower was closed for stabilization, a process that was hoped to have been completed in time for the millennium. Given the tower’s universal fame and proven drawing power--more than a million visitors in 1989--the decision was made not to right it completely but to restore it to a degree of relative stability.

And there’s more to the celebrated Campo than just the tower. The standard combination admission ticket also includes the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo (cathedral construction museum); the Camposanto, or cemetery, a cloistered aboveground mausoleum in which the bodies of noble Pisans were placed in the vacated sarcophagi of noble Romans amid 53 shiploads of soil brought back from Calvary; and the Sinopie museum, containing the red ink sketches that preceded the application of frescoes. Seeing all six takes a full day and is substantially more satisfying when interspersed with meals and a little shopping.

In April my wife, Stacie, and I celebrated our fifth anniversary by spending the night in Pisa rather than continuing on to Florence, an hour away. Not only were comparable high-quality accommodations and meals about 25% cheaper (justifying our splurge at the Grand Hotel Duomo), but after the exodus of day-trippers around 6 p.m., we had the old city largely to ourselves, other than the several thousand students who attend the 650-year-old university and give Pisa its ever young, if not always ever studious, vitality.

No brusque “completo” dismissals at the best trattorie; no madding crowds on our evening stroll along the palazzo-lined Arno; and no rush to choose a flavor at the popular gelateria in the Piazza Garibaldi.

And as we discovered, there’s another advantage to spending the night in Pisa: a second chance for a clear day. The weatherworn tower doesn’t photograph well against a weather-beaten sky. After an introductory day of constant rain, we were particularly thankful when the morrow broke clear and cloudless, with the snow atop the 6,000-foot Apuan Alps glittering in the background.

It was then that the glory that is Pisa shone brightest.

A bustling seaport in the Roman empire, Pisa became a great naval power in the 9th century.

Construction of the celebrated tower began in 1173 during what became known as Pisa’s Golden Age. The tower, designed by Bonanno Pisano (the “Pisano” identifying his hometown, not his family name), was to be Europe’s tallest and most ornate bell tower, a fitting symbol for the new regional superpower and the gem of Pisa’s ambitious urban renewal program.

No sooner had the first three of six colonnaded tiers been completed than the tower started leaning. The fault, however, lay in neither the design nor the execution, but in the unstable alluvial plain upon which the resplendent new city was being built.

A century later, with the base tilting southward, construction resumed. Successive architects compensated for the lean by making the features on the southern side correspondingly “taller.” As soon as the recessed belfry, now purposefully angled 6 feet northward, was added in the 14th century, the finally completed tower became an unintended symbol of proud Pisa’s own shifting fortunes. In 1284, Pisa had seen its naval supremacy negated by archrival Genoa at the battle of Meloria; in 1406, Pisa fell under Florentine control.

During the next 400 years, the lean gradually increased from 1.6 degrees to 5 degrees, more than enough to allow Galileo to prove his theory of the uniform acceleration of gravity in 1590 by dropping objects of different weights from its top (though modern historians doubt this story).

By the 19th century, it was apparent that if something wasn’t done to arrest the tower’s downward progress, Pisa would soon lose what had already become its world-famous attraction.

The first two government-sponsored restorations succeeded only in making matters worse. In 1838, the original, now sunken walkway encircling the base was excavated in an effort to analyze the foundations for a more comprehensive restoration. The tower responded by slumping a full foot and a half.

A century later, dictator Benito Mussolini ordered 80 tons of concrete poured unequally into the foundation in the hopes of nudging it northward. The tower again slipped farther south. But when heavy Allied bombing in 1944 didn’t budge it an inch, the authorities concluded that the long-standing tower was indeed a miracle and that it was destined to stay that way forever.

And so matters stood until the Pavia collapse forced the government into preemptive action. After two false starts, the first of 41 steel extraction tubes--long and thin but sturdy tubes through which the compacted soil was sucked out--was angled underneath the tower’s north side in February 1999. To ensure that the tower remained steady during the two-year process, steel cables tethered to sunken weights were looped around the third tier.

By the time the extraction process was completed last January, about 110 tons of compacted silt had been removed, enough to reduce the overhang (the distance the top of the tower extends above the base) from 17 to 15 feet but not enough to be discernible to the untrained eye. The steel cables were removed in May, followed by the last of the extraction tubes.

The delays have been unfortunate, but as Nerio Nesi, minister of public works, said at Pisa’s three-day annual festival in June, “Eleven years of work are not too much if you consider that to build this monument it took two centuries. We can tell the Italian citizens with pride that we have spent their money well.”

And though they will be limited to guided groups of 30, 21st century tower toppers aren’t likely to disagree. Recent gravitational corrections notwithstanding, the top of the tower is destined to be its old compelling self.

But intent on going beyond the tower and seeing overlooked Pisa, we wandered south through the town’s 12th century core. Eventually we emerged onto the Borgo Stretto, the meandering commercial thoroughfare whose overhanging second stories are supported by a series of graceful, fluted Gothic columns.

Just to the east lies the university, a six-block conglomeration of pastel ochre and orange buildings, where Galileo studied and taught. Students, not tourists, abound here, whether lingering in the cozy, cafe-laden Piazza Dante Alighieri or scurrying to class through the expansive Piazza dei Cavalieri. Dominating the latter are the Palazzo dell’Orologio (Palace of the Clock Tower), complete with central bell tower, and the Scuola Normale Superiore with its ornate graffito decorations.

For our anniversary meal that evening, we lingered over boar and venison and a bottle of Chianti Riserva selected by our waitress in the upscale Antica Trattoria il Campano in the Vicolo Santa Margherita, housed--no surprise to Italian speakers--in the base of a 12th century bell tower.

But before turning in, it was once more round the softly floodlit Campo, which, except for a lone cyclist on his way home, we had to ourselves. If there was no other reason to overnight in Pisa, this was it. Devoid of the daily hordes, it was only at night that the Campo fulfilled its original, spiritually inspiring duty.

The next morning we were the first tourists inside the Duomo, and the first ushered out. (The time before 10 a.m. is reserved for worshipers.) Fortunately, we had spent two hours here the previous day, soaking up the Moorish-influenced cream and green striped marble walls and the lavish paleo-Christian interior, the undisputed highlight of which is Giovanni Pisano’s monumental marble pulpit with its nine panels depicting scenes from the life of Christ. The Duomo is worth no less than an hour, and it was to see it without the roving crowds of babbling tour groups (all speaking their own languages) that I tried sneaking in early the next morning--unsuccessfully, as it turned out.

So we made our way over to Santa Maria della Spina, a diminutive Gothic chapel originally built on the bank of the Arno but reassembled atop a quay in 1871 after a series of devastating floods. In contrast to the overwhelming Duomo, Santa Maria della Spina is small and intimate. People clearly came here to commune with God.

Today, the object of their veneration, the reliquary box containing the thorn, or spina, believed to have been taken from Jesus’ crown--along with most of Pisa’s medieval and Renaissance ecclesiastical art--is housed at the Museo Nazionale di San Matteo, a converted 15th century convent that overlooks the Arno.

Not surprisingly, the artists tend to be local as well, reflecting Pisa’s status as one of Italy’s leading cultural centers. Besides the paintings and sculptures of Nino, Nicola, Giunta and Giovanni Pisano are those of such “foreigners” as Donatello, Masaccio and Fra Angelico.

For more secular offerings, including the private collections of the Medici, Lorraine and Savoy dynasties, head to the nearby Museo Nazionale di Palazzo Reale. By now it was late afternoon, and we too were late in making our departure for Florence. After a fortifying caffe latte and torta pisana, a wedge-shaped custard pastry topped with pine nuts and powdered sugar, at the strategically situated Caffe Duomo, we finally headed east. I know it’s not polite to keep a beautiful woman waiting, but I’m still inclined toward her more manageable older sister.

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Guidebook: Leaning Toward Pisa

Getting there: Pisa is virtually equidistant from Rome and Milan, so you have your choice of international gateways. From LAX, connecting service (change of planes) to Rome is offered on Alitalia, Lufthansa, KLM, Delta, British, Swissair, Continental and US Airways. Fares begin at $838, dropping to $712 after Christmas. From LAX, nonstop service is available to Milan on Alitalia, and connecting service is offered on Lufthansa, KLM, United, British, Air France, Air Canada and Continental. Restricted round-trip fares begin at $712 (higher at Christmas).

Telephones: To reach numbers below, dial 011 (the international access code), 39 (the country code for Italy) and 050 (the city code for Pisa), followed by the local number.

Where to stay: Reasonably priced pensioni and alberghi can be found near the train station, but do your eyes and feet a favor by staying in one of the many slightly more expensive hostelries closer to the Campo, such as Albergo Gronchi, 1 Piazza Arcivescovado, 561-823, $29 double; or Albergo Helvetia, 31 Via G. Boschi, 553-084, $37-$46 double.

For more expensive rooms with that world-famous view, head for the Grand Hotel Duomo, 94 Via Santa Maria, 561-894, fax 560-418, www.grandhotelduomo.it, $150 double; or the Villa Kinzica, 2 Piazza Arcivescovado, 560-419, fax 551-204, www.pisaonline.it/HotelVillaKinzica, $83 double.

Where to eat: Perfectly adequate tourist fare can be found in the streets leading into the Campo dei Miracoli, but for traditional Pisan fare, head straight to Antica Trattoria il Campano, 44 Via Cavalca, 580-585. Entrees $10-$20.

Also recommended: Osteria la Grotta, 103 Via San Francesco, 578-105, housed in a vaulted wine cellar (closed Sundays), entrees $8-$15; and Antica Trattoria da Bruno, 12 Via Luigi Bianchi (just outside the city wall), 560-818, fax 550-607 (closed Monday evening and all day Tuesday); entrees $12-$17.

For a midday snack, there’s no place better than Caffe Duomo.

Tickets: Forty-five-minute guided tours, offered in groups of 30, are available 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. in winter and 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. in summer. Tickets (about $13) must be reserved. For information and reservations, call 560-547 or fax 560-505.

For more information: For general tourist information, visit the city of Pisa’s Web site at www.pisaonline.it.

For detailed information about the Leaning Tower: the official Web site, www.duomo.pisa.it and the unofficial Web site, www.endex.com/gf/buildings/ltpisa/ltpisa.html.

Also, Italian Government Tourist Board, 12400 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 550, Los Angeles, CA 90025; (310) 820-1898, fax (310) 820-6357, www.italiantourism.com and www.enit.it.

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Marshall Berdan is a freelance writer in Alexandria, Va.