Customer Reviews

Tilt

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At the conclusion of TILT, the more perverse reader might just think: "Let it fall over; I'll even help with a shove." Especially if full cover price was paid for the book. Happily, I bought a used copy for a steal, so I entertain no such revisionist thought.

TILT is all about the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Well, pretty much. Its 835-year history, including the 197 years it took to build the thing at a stutter start and stop pace, is so intertwined with Pisa itself that the reader gets an abbreviated history of the city's glory days whether one cares much or not. Luckily, TILT is commendably short.

Don't misunderstand. Nicholas Shrady's history-Lite of one of the world's most recognizable buildings is not without charm. The author's style is chatty as he ascribes the Tower's origin to the rise of the Pisa city-state in the 11th century when its navy plundered Palermo, the capital of Muslim Sicily, the loot from which raid funded the construction of the cathedral complex into which the Tower later became incorporated commencing in 1173. Then, Pisa's fortunes went into decline in the 1200s as it started squabbling with more powerful rivals - Florence, Genoa, and Venice. Understandably, because of the all the internecine warfare and the Tower's ever increasing tilt, the edifice wasn't completed until 1370.

Shrady spends a lot of page space on the life of Galileo, and eventually concludes that his famous experiment, wherein he dropped two different-sized cannonballs from the top of the Tower to demonstrate that objects fall at the same rate regardless of their mass, was a complete fiction created by his admiring disciple, Vincenzo Viviani, since no contemporary record of the event exists.

Of course, the Tower's increasing deviation from the vertical is the unifying thread, and the author gleefully points out that some seventeen commissions have been created over the centuries to deal with the problem, only the last of which apparently successfully stabilized the Tower in 1999-2000 by removing dirt from underneath one side of the foundation. Indeed, the book would have interested me more had the author dwelled further on technical aspects and difficulties of that project than on what came before.

At 161 paper-backed pages, TILT is a mildly amusing read - with the stress on "mildly" - suitable for a plane flight of relatively short duration, say Los Angeles to Albuquerque or New York to Atlanta. But, there's no need to carry the book off the aircraft; leave it in the seat pocket with the emergency instructions.

Tilt is a nice, enjoyable, and interesting read. It is a quick, little book (I finished it in a sitting), but quite engaging. If you are in search of a scholarly tome on the subject or even an exhaustive history of the Tower this might be a bit light for you, but if you are looking for a fun read on an interesting subject then I would recommend it.

Shrady does a good review of how the Leaning Tower of Pisa came about. It was due to building the tower on land that once belonged to a bog. When some of the sand shifted, the tower (companile) leaned. In 17 commissions over the years, more damage was done until finally in 1990, the tower was in danger of falling over. This is an interesting book about the history of the city state of Pisa, and its remarkable tower and cathedral. The book made me want to visit this historic building.

This is a nice read about an interesting building and place. I actually learned something about architecture and soil conditions.

Shrady provides an excellent historical perspective on one of the most beloved monuments of the world. In this insightful and fascinating work, he articulates the history of the campanile in a thorough and well-researched manner. I gave 4 stars as while this presents as a scholarly work, no references for the body of the text are listed. I was otherwise pleased with the book and would definitely recommend it to others!