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(PISA, Italia, 13 June 2001) La Repubblica Giornale The Monument Reopens in November after Eleven Years of Closing and an Exemplary Restoration An expense of 55 billion lira ($25 million US) as the Tower of Pisa Has Recovered its Inclination by Half a Degree |
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by CLAUDIA RICONDA PISA - It is recovered. After 11 years, it is beyond danger. It survived by intensive care, by crazy experiments, by what seemed a therapeutic fury. In these eleven years nothing has been spared. It had been bandaged, pulled, encased, anchored, had steel suspenders installed, lead ingots on the side, cement injected, had its bearing soil frozen by liquid nitrogen, experts from Japan insisted: let us repair the Tower of Pisa, we will straighten it and return it refreshed, trust us. It had been closed January 7 1990 because it was leaning four and half meters, and a millimeter more each year, it was given another twenty years and it may all come down. And instead, the intervention of the technicians, for a cost in all of 55 billion lire, has lengthened her life by another three hundred years. The inclination is still spine-chilling, but a little bit less. On those four and a half meters of lean almost 44 centimeters has been returned, the inclination straightened back by half a degree. An imperceptible journey toward salvation, not visible to the naked eye, the view from outside the Tower is the usual reed of bamboo folded over by the wind, a stronger gust and you would think that it could go down. Yet it is a decisive footstep, grandiose. "we have been brave, we return this masterpiece to the world: it is a restoration that does honor to Italy" mayor Paul Fontanelli says, who was among those that were in a cold sweat in September 1995 when the Tower rebelled to an anchorage intervention and in only one night tilted by a millimeter, as it normally did in a whole year. A moment of terror. "There is not a more correct word than panic to describe that night," says John Burland, a member of the committee: "We say that we were saved by a hair." Fear, discouragement, criticisms did not end. The committee tottered, but Jamiolkowski went ahead. The Tower was fixed for safety with four steel suspenders, waiting to initiate corrective action. The solution was more intuitive: if the tower leans to the South, we remove earth under the base to the North, she slips down a little bit, and she settles down again. In February 1999, the drills began to suck clay, one hundred kilograms per day. The Tower is straightened. It is done. Two years later, the drills disappear, also the connecting rods and the lead ingots used for counterweight, and planning begins to organize the party. Saturday the keys will be delivered to the president of the Work of the Primaziale, to whom custody returns. And Sunday candles along the Arno and a concert by Andrea Bocelli in the presidential estate of St. Rossore. A delicate delivery, as it is returned home an old woman after a surgical intervention, healthy but not to be maltreated. And in fact the public will only get on the bell tower in November, and in limited numbers. There is a specially named committee established for the purpose of establishing the methods and times of the official reopening, but it is already known that the guided tours will be composed from about thirty people. Duration of the visit, half an hour. The entry will be dear: 25 thousand lire ($12 US) per head. There is much to recover: when it was closed, the Tower was visited by a million people every year, at 4 thousand lire per ticket: eleven years of closing, the accounts became backlogged in a hurry. The charge of the committee of experts will expire in December, like that of the manager of the work Paolo Heiniger, the operative arm of the committee: "Excavate below, without thinking about what there was above. We have gone ahead, relying on the technical data and on the numbers, as it was the only way not to be afraid." |
Translated by Gary Feuerstein, 1 July 2001 from the La Repubblica article
Personal e-mail to:
gary@endex.com
