Q 01/05

The Leaning Tower of Pisa is a freestanding bell tower, a type of building known in Italian as what?

A) Duomo

B) Campanile

C) Palazzo

D) Loggia

Answer · why

B) Campanile

Campanile comes from campana, the Italian for bell. Pisa's is known the world over, yet who designed it is still argued over.

Q 02/05

Pisa is a city in which region of Italy?

A) Tuscany

B) Veneto

C) Lombardy

D) Umbria

Answer · why

A) Tuscany

Tuscany is ruled from Florence, which seized Pisa in 1406 and ended its centuries as an independent republic.

Q 03/05

What is the Leaning Tower of Pisa faced with?

A) Brick

B) Granite

C) Marble

D) Sandstone

Answer · why

C) Marble

Marble is heavy, and the soft ground could not carry it evenly: the tower began to tilt when only about three of its eight storeys were built.

Q 04/05

Roughly how tall is the tower on its low side?

A) 76 metres

B) 36 metres

C) 96 metres

D) 56 metres

Answer · why

D) 56 metres

It measures 55.86 m on the low side and 56.67 m on the high side, and weighs about 14,500 tonnes.

Q 05/05

In 1995 engineers froze the ground beside the Leaning Tower of Pisa with what, triggering a sudden jolt?

A) Dry ice

B) Liquid nitrogen

C) Liquid helium

D) Chilled brine

Answer · why

B) Liquid nitrogen

Liquid nitrogen was meant to keep groundwater out of a dig at the base; instead the tower moved as far in one night as it usually did in a year, a fri...