The now called Leaning Tower of Pisa began construction on August 9^th, 1173.  The tower was simply meant to be a bell tower whose purpose was seemingly to show the greatness of the city of Pisa.  The townspeople would have never guessed that the building of this somewhat pointless bell tower would one day make the city of Pisa world famous.  The buildings that were surrounding the tower were a cathedral, a baptistery, and a cemetery.  The bell tower of Pisa was just going to be another building to go along with the buildings near it...but it turned out to be one of the most interesting monuments ever built.

            The construction of the tower began back in 1173 and this can be verified by the fact that it is inscribed at the right of the door to the entrance of the monument. Due to lack of records, it is not known who brought up the idea to build the tower or who was the architect.  The building of the tower of Pisa took many years because of halts in construction because of war or any other type of political disruption. 

            After completing three floors, the construction was halted in 1185 due to a war with Florence.  The war meant that there would be no money going into the tower because it needed to be spent on the war.  During this time, the foundation stones of the tower were just resting on the unusually soft ground, and they started to sink into the ground.  The tower was sinking between 30 and 40 cm and had an initial lean of 5cm.

            The bad foundation called for a repair plan of the tilted Pisan tower.  An architect by the name of Professor Piero Pierotti said that the construction materials of the staircase prevented the reduction of masonry toward the top and left the people with few options to fix the lean that the foundation had caused. A man by the name of Giovanni di Simone then took up the construction of the tower.  His ingenious work lead to the completion of six floors on the tower, and his idea of raising up the sides of the galleries helped improve the inclination of the tower.

            After Giovanni had completed the six floors, the lean of the tower became more then 90 cm.  This normally would have distressed the builders, but instead it sparked interest in the people of Pisa who had been most involved in the construction of the tower.  Finally in 1360, after almost a century of being left alone, the tower was completed by Tommaso Pisano including the installation of the belfry and fixing of any feasible problems that the tower had.