and it reopens for a day
(PISA, Italia, 2 June 2000)
La Repubblica Giornale
It has been Straightened by 12 Centimeters.
Guided Tours Scheduled for the 17th.
PISA- The Date has been fixed: 17 June 2001, the day of the reopening of the Tower of Pisa. An opening greeted by symbolic anticipation, on the 16th and 17th of June, there will be an extraordinary opening - of few hours- for a guided tour of journalists and students. The minister of the Public Works, Nerio Nesi, announces it to underline the fact that the Tower has been straightened by twelve centimeters. The proposal will be approved definitely by the committee for the Tower in a meeting fixed for next Wednesday.
If everything goes as scheduled, the students admitted to the guided tour will be two hundred, selected among the schools of the Tuscan city. Separated into groups of fifteen they will have the opportunity to get on the Tower, and the visits will be limited to the first and to the second story since the upper part is occupied by the machineries used for the consolidation.
The Tower has been closed to the public since January 7 1990. Since then it has been reopened only for the resumptions of a television film (October 1992) and, last February, as a base to launch the flight of a parachutist.
The president of the international Committee of experts, Michele Jamiolkowski, has stated that the project still requires about a year of work.(PISA, Italia, 2 June 2000)
Corriere della Sera Giornale
Straightened by 12 centimeters:
"We will let the students climb"
Pisa, The Tower opens for a day but only for "light" tourists
The entry "by weight" is proposed by Nesi: "But it was a joke"
Friday 2 June 2000
Marco Gasperetti
PISA- The Tower of Pisa has recovered and reopens to the public in 15 days. Or better, June 17, the Day of St. Ranieri, patron of the city, the bell tower will timidly accept the first guided tours.
A few selected students, authorities and technicians will climb the 333 stairs for an inauguration after 10 years of closing as a symbolic gesture. Then the Tower will return off limits. Because despite that it has been straightened by 12 centimeters and the collapse remains a distant nightmare, there is another 12 months of work and the true opening (to a limited number) has been fixed for June 17, 2001.
The news, in preview, arrived from Mario Nesi, during an interview at the Commission headquarters. The minister announced the reopening of the monument to the public within 15 days: "it will be begun by schoolboys who weigh little". A phrase misunderstood by everybody and the minister hastened immediately to explain: "Free access only to the light tourists? There will be others, I was only joking.
This will be the occasion for all those children that still have not had the occasion to see the Tower". The mayor of Pisa, Paolo Fontanelli, confirms the news but more precisely: "The definitive reopening to the public will happen next year, when the work of consolodation is concluded".
Numerous "doctors" continue to serve the "bedside" of the Tower. In 15 days there will be a visit to the Workyard of the Piazza dei Miracoli and to the bell tower of only authorities and students. In the same ceremony minister Nesi will also participate. The authorities will verify the advancement of the work of consolidation, the students will climb timidly on the bell tower. But not on the top.
The Work of the Primaziale, the organization that oversees the work, has decided that the guided tours on June 17 will be allowed only up to the second story of the Tower "since in the upper part", the experts say, "there are tools and equipment for the work still in course". It seems the technical direction will be entrusted to the Committee of Safeguard presided over by professor Michele Jamiolkowski.
The organization will reunite next week and will give the last word on the partial opening that however he/she/it/you should be discounted. Michele Jamiolkowski, however, is said to be satisfied with the progressive reduction of the lean: "Now the Tower has been straightened by 12 centimeters", he has told the journalists, "excellent news that, however, does not yet allow the reopening of the bell tower.
The work must go on at least another year, otherwise we would be risking the greater part of what has alrady been accomplished". "In summary then, still a year before the Tower will be out of danger. At least for another six centuries, the experts say".
Translated by Gary Feuerstein, 28 December 2000 from the La Repubblica and Corriere della Sera articles
Personal e-mail to:
gary@endex.com
