 Italia On Line (PISA, Italia, 27 August 2000 ) Andrew Panagia Does Tecnology of the future simulate techniques of the past? Does the Baptistery of Pisa have the virtues of a musical tool? Is the Piazza dei Miracles a clock? Is the Tower straightened? Mysteries and technical complexities are woven in one of the most famous plazas of the world. After almost 700 years the famous Tower of Pisa has begun to reduce the inclination that had arrived at the limit of no return. A few centimeters of reduction, but greeted with enthusiasm by the group of technicians and scientists that one implemented it, for years, in the defense of the famous monument. Cables of steel bridled it, hundreds of tons of lead offset the soil bearing and drilling to remove soil from under the high side of the tower, have been able to stop the progressive tilt of the monument and to counterbalance it from further leaning. Interventions were initiated during the original construction, initiated in the 1173, when, at the third level, the yelding of the ground made it necessary to modify the development of the following floors in the direction of a correction to the inclination. The Baptistery has unique acoustics: today it is possible to listen to echoes and reverberations as the monument behaves like a device for the accumulation of sounds. Using electronic apparatus it is possible to strengthen these qualities. The building could be considered a tool to perform a written composition: like a taut rope becomes a lute, guitar, violin or piano, or a straight pipe flute or the reed of organ. Did the architects intend to create a musical monument or was it all a joke of destiny? According to professors S. Burgalassi and A. Zampieri, Piazza dei Miracoli is a cosmic hourglass because the sun, beating on precise points of the plaza, articulates the rhythm of life and of the seasons. The plaza of the Pisa Cathedral was intended to act as a clock and cosmic calendar, useful to measure all the existential times: the beginning of the Pisan year (25 March), the entrance of the Sun in each of the constellations, various sacred times as well as the hours of the day. |
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