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Tilt:
A Skewed History of the Tower of Pisa by Nicholas Shrady Rating: • (Read only
if your interest is strong) |
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Lean Some readers
will be taken aback by the first noticeable feature of a new book by Nicholas
Shrady, Tilt: A Skewed History of the Tower of
Pisa. The book itself is titled: it was cut in a way that it
slants, looking out of place on any bookshelf. The text tells most readers
more than you’ll ever want to know about the famous tower. Here’s an excerpt from
the middle of Chapter 4. “Terreni Limosi,” pp. 64-69: The lion’s share of the marble
used to adorn the Campo dei Miracoli was cut from the
quarries around San Giuliano, northeast of More than a year and a half
before the August 9, 1173,
official groundbreaking for the campanile, the architect, or master builder,
of the tower was already in San Giuliano with his taglia*
in tow, meticulously choosing the stone for this third monument to rise
up in the Cainpo dei Miracoli. Presumably, the widow Berta
di Bernardo’s sixty coins could buy a good hit of
stone. The purest, least-flawed marble was reserved for the columns,
capitals, and exterior ashlar blocks; pieces of bardiglio, a marble streaked with gray, were
set aside for the signature horizontal bands favored by the Pisan architects of the period. Some of this marble was
worked in situ at the
quarry, but the best blocks were transported to Pisa and left in a warehouse
built in the cathedral square, where the marble was allowed to mature, or purificatur, as the Pisans
said. As might he expected after millions of years embedded in the earth, a
marble’s reaction to light and air, cold and heat, rain, frost, and snow,
could he unpredictable at best. No master mason worth his chisel would work
freshly quarried stone, particularly for such an important commission. Thus,
they waited and watched the marble mature and began to imagine which blocks
would furnish columns, which would make a rounded arch. The scrupulous care
that the Pisan masons devoted to their marble was
telling of a craft just beginning to take on the more rigorous air of a fine
art. The master masons—or lapicidi, carvers
of decorations and sculptures in stone, as they were sometimes called—weren’t merely shaping rude blocks of
stone but chiseling exquisite capitals, increasingly refined figures, and the slenderest of
columns from unsullied marble. Theirs was a profession of prestige and
modest prosperity, and one which
allowed for a considerable
measure of freedom, at least
by strict medieval
standards. Not
surprisingly, the descendants
of some of these accomplished artisans went on to
form a circle of Pisan
sculptors in the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries, the great Giovanni Pisano
among them, who in turn, were the artistic precursors of Renaissance
artists such as Lorcnzo Ghiberti, Donatello. and Rernardo Rossellino.
Emerging in the Campo dei Miracoli were not
only three splendid monuments, but a
whole cultural landscape sown
with the seeds of prospective genius. Before the craftsmen and
laborers could begin work on the
campanile, they were obliged to take this oath of fealtv
and good faith to the Opera della Primaziale: “I. Renato Rottici,” recited
one such craftsman, “pledge to be solicitous and attentive in the building of the campanile of the cathedral,
in accordance with the means of
the Opera.” The oath was intended to keep
a varied workforce in line and accountable for their
labors, for in among
the ablest artisans there were a good
many journeyman laborers too,
unskilled, poorly paid, and often less than diligent. If things went wrong on the building site, as they invariably did, what with
accidental deaths and serious injuries, not to mention fights, delays,
and protests, the blame was usually laid squarely on these
itinerant laborers. For centuries, in
fact, it was widely believed
that the Now, whether or not the towers architect was required to take such an oath is impossible to
say, hut it is clear that he too was solicitous and attentive—at least most of the time. On paper, the
campanile is a miracle of minute calculations and
seamless proportions. Its design is modular, that is, it is based on a
uniform component, in this case the
columns of the galleries, and all other elements in
the Construction are proportionate to it. The columns measure ten Pisan feet (a Pisan
foot is roughly equivalent to the Roman foot that provided a
widespread standard of measurement
before the metric system was adopted
in the nineteenth century), while
the circumference of the tower is one hundred Pisan
feet and its height one hundred braccia, or arms, precisely. There is nothing haphazard about these figures; they
were calculated with the assiduousness of the architects of the classical
world. The towers fatal flaw lay deeper. That the campanile was to be built on unstable ground was
no surprise to the architect or any other
builder in When work began on the
campanile on August 9, it was specifically to dig the vast excavation for the
towers foundation. Following the orders of Bonnano Pisano, Deotisalvi, Gerardo,
or whoever the architect of the campanile was, laborers dug to a depth of
approximately three meters and poured a foundation of concrete composed
mostly of quartzite stone. The
foundation was then left to settle and
solidify for a good many
months, as was the custom in At last, the building of the campanile proper
commenced in early 1174, two years from
the death of the widow Berta di Bernardo. The ground story rose in blind arcades and half columns around a base wall
which, like those of the duomo and the baptistery,
measured no less than thirteen feet thick. The structural integrity of the
towers base order was crucial, as it would
have to withstand not only
the weight of seven upper stories and
seven bronze hells, hut the potentially stone-shattering vibrations
produced by the latter. Meanwhile, growing up the interior of the tower were the first steps of a grand
spiral staircase that would he wide enough, it was said, to climb the campanile on horseback. Workers also added
adornments as they built. Besides the decorative motifs appropriated from the
cathedral, which included the alternating hands of white and gray marble and
the polychrome lozenges set inside the blind arcades, the masons inscribed
the tower with a number of curious symbols, figures, and inscriptions.
Flanking the entrance door, a place of obvious importance, they carved two
zoomorphic reliefs depicting wild beasts giving
chase to a fantastic winged serpent. Nearby, another relief showed two
galleys entering the Pisan port beneath an immense tower, a symbol of *A taglia
was a school or circle of masons, stonecutters, and sculptors, along with
other craftsmen and apprentices, which developed around a master builder or
architect. Dual
curiosities: about the tower and how to read a book cut on the bias, will
lead some readers to enjoy reading Tilt.
For me, the curiosity about the tower wore off quickly, and Shrady’s writing wasn’t enlivening enough to keep me
engaged. As to the shape of the book, after a few minutes of unease, it just
became annoying. Most of what I thought I was learning as I read the book, I’ve
already forgotten. Proceed with caution, and read Tilt
only if your interest is strong. Steve
Hopkins, March 23, 2004 |
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ã 2004 Hopkins and Company, LLC The recommendation rating for
this book appeared in the April 2004
issue of Executive Times URL for this review: http://www.hopkinsandcompany.com/Books/Tilt.htm For Reprint Permission,
Contact: Hopkins & Company, LLC • E-mail: books@hopkinsandcompany.com |
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