The group of buildings before us is one of the most celebrated in all Europe, partly for the beauty of the structures and partly because the taller one is a "leaning" tower. That marble tower leans thirteen feet from the perpendicular. Even as you gaze on it, it seems in the act of falling. Standing upon the top and looking down, you feel that you are falling with the tower and you instinctively grasp the railing in front of you in an effort to save yourself. The interior is hollow and one can look down into it as into a gigantic tube. The structure is 180 feet high and is crowned by a belfry which contains seven bells. You can see here them from here. The heaviest weighs six tons and hanfs on the side opposite the overhanging wall. People for many years have

tried to find out just why this tower leaps, as it has done for 550 years. The best explanation is that the ground settled while it was being built and the upper stories were added in a curved line, the walls on the leaning side being strenghtened to bear the strain. The grand old cathedral, one of the finest in the world, was constructed after a great naval victory of the Pisans in the eleventh century. In this cathedral hangs the altar-lamp that suggested to Galileo the idea of the pendulum. Our position here gives us a rear view of the building, but from every point of observation it is imposing. It, like the bell tower, is constructed entirely of marble.