The legendary Leaning Tower of Pisa is stable and has slowly lost a tiny bit of its trademark tilt, a group of researchers monitoring the Tuscan monument has said.
The tower lost a reported 4cm of its tilt in the past 20 years and its health is better than forecast by an international committee coordinated by Michele Jamiolkowski between 1993 and 2001, which planned and coordinated consolidation work, the surveillance group led by Salvatore Settis, Carlo Viggiani and Donato Sabia said on Tuesday.
The surveillance group has been monitoring the monument for the past 17 years.
Nunziante Squeglia, a professor of geotechnics at the University of Pisa who cooperates with the monitoring group, said that the tilt has decreased thanks to stabilization work, along with "oscillations now varying at the average of 1/2 millimeter a year, although what counts the most is the stability of the bell tower, which is better than expected". The group's activities, which are funded by the non-profit Opera della Primaziale Pisana, include monitoring the tower and improving the quality of conservation measures, as well as promoting research on the monument.
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