Leisurely Myths of Pisa

Nick gave me this book for my birthday and I guess the presents were themed with myth. Tilt busts a few of those and probably prolongs a few more. Shrady provides a pleasant read of the kind you like to have to hand driving in or out of the holiday town du jour. Meandering from this pretty view to that interesting story and on to that amusing anecdote with a paperified tour guide.

No escaping that tilted shot

Tilt nicely weaves the history of the iconic tower with that of the city and some of its famous inhabitants. It stages Pisa's sudden rise to greatness as a maritime republic, and its equally dramatic fall. The revolutionary architecture of the cathedral, baptistry and bell tower built upon its riches. The slowly increasing gradient and the attempts to arrest it (16 commissions over 8 centuries couldn't do it and the last had to fail before it succeeded). How Galileo didn't do his experiments in gravity from the tower. Even Mussolini gets a concrete cameo.