Leaning Tower of Pisa

Overview

Book your visit to the Leaning Tower of Pisa, one of the most famous monuments and symbol of Italy all over the world, part of the beautiful Piazza dei Miracoli (Miracles Square).

Tour details

Reservations must be requested with a minimum advance of 15 days and a maximum advance of 45 days before the date of the visit.

It's possible to book maximum 10 people at the time.

For security reasons, access to the Tower is restricted to a limited number of people each time.

IMPORTANT NOTICE: After succesfully completing a reservation, you will receive two e- mails: the copy of your order (immediately after submitting your order) and the confirmation mail (one working day after). In order to receive them, please make sure you insert your e-mail address correctly and check that your anti-spam filter or antivirus are not blocking mails from our address reservations@waf.it. Special attention for AOL and sbcglobal.net mailbox users.

PLEASE NOTICE: Confirmed time is not always the same time you requested; museum automatically confirms the closest available time on the same date if requested time is sold out.

Cancellation policy: it's possible to change or cancel the reservation within 10 days from the day when the reservation is submitted. Changes will be accepted according to availability remained. Cancellation within this limit allows the refund of unused tickets minus service fee. Later cancellation requests are no shows are not accepted and not refundable.

Opening hours:

January and December: 10:00 - 16:30 (last climb)
February and November: 09:30 - 17:30 (last climb)
March: 09:00 - 17:30 (last climb)
April to September: 08:30 - 20:00 (last climb); extraordinary night openings from June 16th to August 31st: 08:30 - 23:00 (last climb; in this case, purchase of ticket will allow free entrance to Camposanto Monumentale).
October: 09:00 - 19:00 (last climb)

Ticket pick up:

In order to collect the ticket BY AVOIDING THE QUEUE, please show the confirmation voucher to Cashier number 2, located inside the "Sinopie Museum" or Cashier number 2 at the "Central Ticket Office", at least 30 minutes before the visiting time scheduled.

Once you will have provided the voucher, the cashier will give you the tickets, valid only for the time shown on the voucher. You must also show an identity document of the voucher holder to pick tickets up.

You will have to deposit any bag or luggage left-luggage office before starting the visit.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION FOR THE VISIT:

Visits to the Tower are organized for groups with a guide who will provide visitors with all the necessary information for the itinerary to follow.

The visit lasts about 30 minutes - no extension is allowed.

We recommend visitors to be punctual as time schedules for the group is strict; no delays will be accepted with respect to the times shown on your entrance ticket.

Children under the age 8 are not allowed under any circumstances on these visits. Children between 8 and 12 years old must be accompanied by a responsible adult and held by hand all the time. Teenagers between 12 and 18 years of age are allowed on the tower only if accompanied by responsible adults.

It is strictly forbidden to carry any bags and/or containers of any kind and shape during the visit and these objects must be left at the cloakroom near the meeting point. Cameras, movie-cameras and video-cameras are allowed

Please, help us to keep the tower's stones clean and free from graffiti or any other action that may damage its preservation, including chewing gums, any non-conformance will be reported and pursued the competent authorities.

Visiting the Tower requires a considerable amount of physical effort for visitors; please consider the spiral staircase has about 300 steps. It's strongly recommended that people with heart disorders or individuals suffering from impaired health conditions do not visit the tower.

It's strictly forbidden walking along the external passageways. Exit to the 7th and 8th levels (the Tower bells' cells) is allowed, but visitors must NOT in any case fan out from the protection railing; it's strictly forbidden to walk under the bells or hit them with any object.

Access to the bells' cell and the tower summit is not easy as it includes narrows or exposed passageways. Individuals who easily feel dizzy are advised not to each this floor. In any case, all visitors must walk very carefully and in good order when getting to these areas.

Warning: the surface of the steps is slippery.

How to get there:

By train

1) From Station Pisa Central

By bus:
N. 21 - by night (opposite the main entrance of the station) stop in Cammeo street/Manin square
N. 4 ((opposite the main entrance of the station) stop in Episcopy square
SHUTTLE RED LAM (opposite the main entrance of the station) stop in Manin square
By Taxi:
A taxi service is available opposite the main entrance of the station.
On foot:
Out of the main entrance of the Station, head for Piazza Vittorio Emanuele, in front, and from there turn into Via Crispi, go straight ahead as far as Ponte Solferino. Cross the bridge, then go straight ahead, turn into Via Roma and go on until you reach Piazza dei Miracoli and the Leaning Tower. Time: approximately 25 minutes

2) From Station Pisa San Rossore

On foot:
Take the subway and get out through Piazza Fancelli. Walk straight on to Via Andrea Pisano. Turn left and go on straight ahead on until you reach Piazza dei Miracoli and the Leaning Tower. Time: approximately 5 minutes

By plane (from Galileo Galilei International Airport)

By bus:
N. 21 - by night (in front of the airport) stop in Cammeo street / Manin square
RED LAM (in front of the airport) stop in Manin square
By Taxi:
A taxi service is available opposite the main entrance of the airport.

By car

1) From the exit Pisa Nord

Through the highway Statale Aurelia to Pisa. At the junction for Parco di S. Rossore, turn left into Viale delle Cascine. Drive along via Contessa Matilde to Largo Cocco Griffi and the Cathedral Square (15-20 minutes)

2) From the exit of the expressway Fi-Pi-Li - Pisa Center

Exit "Aurelia", drive on along the highway Statale Aurelia to Pisa. After crossing the river Arno through the bridge on the Aurelia, turn into Lungarno Cosimo I° and then into via B. Pisano until you reach the Cathedral Square (15-20 minutes)

Tourists parking area : Via Pietrasantina, a five minutes' walk from the Cathedral Square

Details

The architecture

Apart from its extremely famous inclination that really seems to defy the laws of statics, the Tower of the Cathedral is a very unusual building and one of a kind, because of the high historical and artistic value of its forms and because of its peculiar location, within that vast and equally unique area that is the Piazza dei Miracoli. The building is located far from the Cathedral, between the apsidal area and the south-eastern section of the transept of the Cathedral. This is an unusual location – usually, a tower would be erected near the facade or along one side of the church – although this is not the only case, as it can be found in other complexes in town and in other Italian buildings.

In this case, however, it has an unusual value and reasons, because of its distance from the other monuments of Piazza dei Miracoli.

With its remarkable height, for which it was also used as a veritable visual focus, with its slim body, the Tower was in fact perfectly visible from every part of the square and probably also from the river Arno, so it acted as a connection between the city and the square, located in a suburban area of the city, and as a beacon, a landmark and a lookout, and finally as an authoritative symbol of the civic and religious pride of the local community.

The building

The current building, the result of a time-consuming construction work that was restored several times over the centuries, mostly to reduce the risk that it might collapse as a consequence of its remarkable inclination, is composed of a cylindrical stone body surrounded by open galleries with arcades and pillars resting on a bottom shaft, with the belfry on top. The central body is composed of a hollow cylinder with an outer facing of shaped ahlars in white and gray San Giuliano limestone, an interior facing, also made of textured "verrucana" stone, and a ring-shaped stone area in between. This stone area accommodates a winding staircase with 293 steps leading up to the sixth open gallery, where the inner shaft is closed by a vault with a central hole to let light in, providing access to the belfry on top and, in the lower mezzanine floors, to the open galleries. The six open galleries resting on the bottom shafts, with this one and the belfry, divide the tower into eight segments that are called orders. The lower one is enriched by a round of blind arcades placed on half columns that include, under the arcade, a diamond-shaped compass inlaid with polychrome marble, with a raised rosette in the middle. The solid wall is interrupted by the openings of some narrow single-lancet windows and, westwards, by the only entrance door: a rectangular area framed by a lintel. Above the lintel, a crescent-shaped arch with an inlaid archivolt rests on two capitals as a continuation of the jambs, forming a shrine containing the bust of a 14th-century Virgin with Child. On the sides of the door, some friezes decorated with animals and monstrous figures and the unusual figures of some ships (the Port of Pisa?) frame the commemorative epigraph of the foundation of the building.

The inclination
The problem of the inclination is the one that over the centuries has most fascinated and intrigued visitors, art lovers and experts and that has made this monument so famous all over the world. All this is also due to the fact that the reasons for the inclination of the building are still fairly mysterious.

The experts have discussed for a long time, especially in the last century, whether such inclination might be due to the static problems of the building while it was built, in other words whether the incline of the Tower was an effect that the builder had deliberately wanted to achieve or if conversely it was the consequence of an unpredictable or otherwise progressive subsidence of the ground.

In the last century, the increasingly accurate measurements of the building and the surveys of the subsurface conducted with a wide range of devices, combined with historical and archival surveys, have shed some light on the matter. The Tower was presumably initially designed as a straight building; however, it must have begun to subside right from the first stages of the building work. The subsidence was due to the special morphological features of the ground, composed of several layers of clayey materials and silt, run through by groundwater levels at about one metre deep. These conclusions can be drawn from an observation of the soil, and the corrections made to every floor of the building. What is certain, based on the scarce information we have, is that over the centuries the oscillation of the building was minimal, since it must have eventually settled on the ground. This situation is corroborated by the accurate survey conducted in 1817 by two English experts, Cresy and Taylor. A few years later, in 1838, some event must have occurred which must have abruptly accelerated the oscillatory motion of the building, bringing back the need to carry out some decisive protective work. On that date, based on historical and aesthetic needs, it was decided that the bottom of the tower had to be cleared of the mantle of soil that had been hiding it for centuries. This work, that caused the Tower to lose its balance, involved the demolition of the buildings and constructions that stood next to the Tower and above all the draining of the brackish water that always surrounded the entrance of the building. The subsequent measurements showed that the inclination of the Tower had increased by approximately 20 centimeters: in the 267 years between Giorgio Vasari’s surveys in 1550 and those of the two Englishmen in 1817, the inclination had increased by just five centimeters. The leaning movement kept accelerating for a few years after the work of 1838, then decreased again to about one millimeter a year. During the XX century, better information and improved technical instruments, along with the support of governmental and safety authorities, led to a proliferation of studies, surveys and even special projects.

The measurements of the Tower

The monument is 58.36 meters high at the foundation and over 55 meters above ground. Its weight has been calculated at 14,453 tons. The center of gravity is 22.6 meters above the foundation plane. The outer diameter of the foundation measures 19.58 meters; the central hole is 4.5 meters wide. The area of the ring-shaped foundation covers therefore 285 square meters; the average pressure on the ground is 497 kPa. The current inclination is approximately 55°, i.e. approximately 10%; the eccentricity of the loads on the foundation plane is 2.3 meters.

Prices

Reservations of full price tickets only.

Reservations to be made directly through Opera della Primaziale Pisana:

- School groups may enjoy a reduction of the entrance ticket fee to access all the monuments against presentation of a list of names to the ticket office on the official headed paper of their school. Similarly, the students of the Province and Pisa Diocese can access the monuments for free after collecting the specific authorization available at the ticket office. One free entrance for an accompanying teacher is granted every 10 students.
- Opera della Primaziale Pisana offers free entrance to the monuments of Piazza del Duomo to disabled persons and the person accompanying them in the measure of one person per guest, after reading the applicable access regulations wherever necessary. To visit the Bell Tower, ask the person in charge with the surveillance service first, as entrance to this monument is allowed to groups with fixed numbers of persons.

Buying any entrance ticket for any monument of the Square also gives visitors free access to the multimedia and information areas located along the special paths arranged in the Opera del Duomo Museum and Museum of Sinopites: virtual environments, experimental tactile exploration of sculptures and historical-cultural information with a vocal support.

Confirmation voucher includes also the link to the MP3 audioguide, provided for free and downloadable from Opera della Primazionale Pisana website. The Podcasting service provided by the Opera Primaziale Pisana with historical and artistic information about Miracle Square, can be listened to without difficulty on any computer, on any operative system and on any portable player.

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