Image copyright AFP/Getty Images Image caption The Leaning Tower of Pisa is now stable and has actually been straightened slightly thanks to restoration work

It's enough to give a monument an identity crisis.

The Leaning Tower of Pisa is known worldwide for its precarious tilt - but now experts have revealed it's going straight.

The tower's Surveillance Group, which monitors restoration work, said the landmark is "stable and very slowly reducing its lean."

The 57m (186ft) medieval monument has been straightened by 4cm (1.5in) over the past two decades, the team said.

"It's as if it's had two centuries taken off its age," Professor Salvatore Settis explained.

Nunziante Squeglia, a professor of geotechnics at the University of Pisa who works with the surveillance team, added: "What counts the most is the stability of the bell tower, which is better than expected."

Back in 1990, the tourist favourite was closed to the public for the first time in 800 years amid fears it could be on the verge of toppling. At the time, it was tilting by 4.5m from the vertical.

An international committee led by Prof Michele Jamiolkowski, a Polish expert, worked to stabilise it between 1993 and 2001.

By the end, the tilt had been corrected by 45cm, at a cost of £200m.

More news from Italy

The lean is as old as the tower itself, having crept in five years after construction began in 1173.

The layer of clay and sand the tower is built on is softer on the south side than the north - so by the time builders got to the third storey, shifting soil had unsettled its foundations.

And while engineers may ultimately take credit for rescuing the relic, visitors can rest assured it's still available for the obligatory pictures...</s>The Leaning Tower Of Pisa Is Leaning Less

Good morning. I'm Steve Inskeep. The Leaning Tower of Pisa is leaning less. The tower in Italy tilts 13 feet toward the south. So to stabilize it, work crews spent years removing earth beneath the north side. The tower has now started to measurably straighten. In recent years, it's moved 1.5 inches toward the vertical. Granted, that's not much, but they don't want it to move much more because it would hardly be the Leaning Tower if it didn't lean.</s>The Leaning Tower of Pisa isn't leaning so much anymore. After more than two decades of efforts to straighten it, engineers say the famed Tuscan bell tower has recovered four centimeters (1.57 inches) more and is in better structural health than predicted.</s>The Leaning Tower of Pisa is not leaning as much as it used to (Getty)

The Leaning Tower of Pisa is one of the world’s most iconic landmarks – but its famous tilt has started to straighten.

The past 20 years has seen the 183ft Italian monument straighten by around four centimetres.

Experts say years of remedial engineering works have taken 200 years off the age of the tower, making it more stable than it has ever been.

Professor Salvatore Settis, from Pisa University, said: ‘It’s as if it’s had two centuries taken off its age.

‘Since remedial work began, the bell tower is leaning by about half a degree less.’

The tower now inclines away by roughly half a degree less compared to its position at the turn of the century.

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The Leaning Tower of Pisa began tilting soon after construction began in 1173, due to the soft sand and clay that lies beneath its foundations.

After hundreds of years of shifting,s the tilt was more than five degrees from the vertical in the early 1990s.

An international team of experts stabilised the tower between 1993 and 2001, correcting the lean by nearly 45 centimetres.</s>The Leaning Tower of Pisa is not leaning as much as it used to.

The iconic Tuscan bell tower, in Italy, seems to be improving with age.

Engineers have been straightening the tower for the past 20 years and have just announced a further four centimetres (1.57 inches) have been shaved off the lean.

They previously reduced it by 17 inches after closing down the building for a decade in the 1990s.

Engineers did this by using hundreds of tons of lead counterweights at the base and extracting soil from under the foundations.

The 12th-century tower reopened to the public in 2001.

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Nunziante Squeglia, a geotechnics professor at the University of Pisa, is a consultant on the project and said: ‘Since restorative work began, the tower is leaning about half a degree less.

‘But what counts is the stability of the tower, which is better than initially predicted.’

He added while the progressive recovery of tilt was good news, the overall structural health of the tower was more important.

The lean has become synonymous with the tower after emerging in 1178 – five years after it was built.</s>The Leaning Tower of Pisa isn't leaning so much anymore.

After more than two decades of efforts to straighten it, engineers say the famed Tuscan bell tower has recovered four centimeters (1.57 inches) more and is in better structural health than predicted.

ANSA news agency quotes a consultant to the international committee monitoring the tilt, Nunziante Squeglia, as saying that while the progressive recovery of tilt is good news, the overall structural health of the tower is more important.

The 12th-century tower reopened to the public in 2001 after being closed for more than a decade to let workers reduce its slant. By using hundreds of tons of lead counterweights at the base and extracting soil from under the foundations, engineers initially shaved 17 inches off the lean.</s>ITALY — The Leaning Tower of Pisa has slowly started defying its name, losing four centimeters of its tilt over the past 17 years.

The movement, roughly 1.5 inches, comes after extensive consolidation work done between 1993 and 2001, which was required to reverse its slump and keep the tower upright.

It means the building in Tuscany, which attracts thousands of tourists every day, is back to the tilt it had at the beginning of the 19th century, according to professor Salvatore Settis, who leads the surveillance group of the monument.

“The reduction of the tilt will not last forever — but it’s very significant and now we have good reasons to hope that the tower can last for at least another 200 years,” Settis told CNN.

When corrective work began on the tower it was leaning six degrees, or 13 feet, off the perpendicular on its south side. Soil was removed on the opposite side in order to reverse its trajectory.

“Technically it has been an incredibly complex work — but the concept of the project is easy to understand,” Settis said. “The tower is leaning towards the South, so part of the soil under the northern side, basically sand and clay, was eliminated, creating cavities that the weight of the tower is now closing”.

The operation forced the closure of the Tower to visitors for nearly a decade. It was reopened in late 2001.

Pisa’s most famous landmark began sinking into its surroundings almost immediately after being erected.

Construction of the tower started in 1173 in the then-seafaring republic of Pisa, but the sandy soil meant it quickly began its tilt.

This latest measurement shows the good health of the monument, according to Gianluca De Felice, director of the Opera della Primaziale Pisana, the institution in charge of the complex of monuments on the Square of Miracles.

The tower is constantly monitored, and the data are examined by a surveillance committee which meets every three months.</s>The Leaning Tower of Pisa is one of the world's most iconic structures. But there was a time when its distinctive tilt was so extreme, experts were worried the structure would soon collapse, and so a plan was carried out to pull the tower further in line.

Those efforts ended back in 2001. Since then, the building has continued to straighten, with new data saying the tower as recovered around 4 centimetres (1.5 inches) or about half a degree of lean.

Of course, it's still not straight. Nobody would want to visit the Perfectly Perpendicular Tower of Pisa after all.

But the surveillance group responsible for monitoring the tower's lean have declared the tower has returned to stability.

"It's as if it's had two centuries taken off its age," says the president of the commission to save the tower, Salvatore Settis, as reported by the BBC.

Which, given the bungled attempts to fix the problem in the past, means we're back to square one. Yay … I guess.

Since the famous bell tower's construction in 1173, it's been a bit wonky.

Engineers working on its construction didn't quite realise the sand and clay foundations were softer to the south, causing one side of the building to sink more than the other. This is why we need geologists, people!

By the time the third story was being added, it was clear something was wrong. Rather than abandoning the whole project, five more levels were added off centre, creating not just a leaning building, but a slightly curved one.

It's possible somebody might have been thinking of the key chains they could sell, but in all likelihood nobody expected the 56 metre (183 foot) tower to continue to topple over the next eight centuries, dragging it roughly 5 metres (16 feet) from the vertical.

This was a win for ball-dropping physicists keen to test gravity, and a win for tourists who want a shirt that reads 'I climbed all 296 steps and all I got was this lousy t-shirt', but there's only so far a tower can lean before catastrophe strikes.

In 1838, the architect Alessandro Della Gherardesca figured it might help if the foundations were exposed. He was wrong. Very wrong. He just made it worse.

The famous dictator Mussolini thought it was an embarrassment, so ordered a bunch of holes to be drilled around it and concrete poured in.

He also made the problem worse.

In 1990, a year after the collapse of another famous Italian medieval bell tower took the lives of three tourists, public officials closed the tower doors and set about fixing these monumental errors once and for all. Enough was enough.

Engineers removed its heavy bells and wrapped cables around the third level before anchoring the building to the north.

The next step was to remove sand, water, and clay from the north side and using giant lead weights to push the foundations down into the hollow while reinforcing them with concrete.

This stage was super slow going. It took about a decade and cost around 30 million Euro, but succeeded in taking 200 years off the clock and recovering a whole 50 centimetres.

Over the next decade the tower has continued to slowly settle, shifting another few centimetres (about an inch) on its own.

In 2007, Settis feared if nothing had been done, the tower almost certainly wouldn't be around for our grandchildren.

"If we had not stepped in the tower would have collapsed between 2030 and 2040," he told The Telegraph at the time.

The bell tower is now back to its pre-Gherardesca position, and doesn't seem set to move a great deal more in either direction. In the very least, we now have well qualified experts keeping a careful eye on it.

The monument has survived a handful of earthquakes. Botched engineering jobs. And the grind of millions of tourist feet. It deserves stick around a few more centuries at least.

With word that it's now stable, hopefully its doors will stay open for a while to come. Which is great. I want my t-shirt.</s>The Leaning Tower of Pisa isn’t leaning so much anymore.

Experts have revealed the tower has lost 4cm of its tilt and is not in immediate danger of falling over anymore, after more than two decades of restorations due to safety fears, The Sun reports.

The white marble 55 metre tower is known around the world — and was famously straightened by Superman in the 1983 movie Superman III.

At one point it was feared subsidence would send the historic building crashing to the ground but a series of projects have halted the droop and it is now thought to be reasonably stable.

A team of specialists led by professor Nunziante Squeglia, a geotechnics expert at the University of Pisa, have announced the findings after a 17-year study.

He said the tower’s health was better than forecasted, and added “the stability of the bell tower is more than expected”.

The 800-year old tower was closed to the public for ten years in the 90s as part of a $A39 million restoration project to halt the tilt.

Cables were used to secure the monument and the stairs, which offers tourists a breathtaking view of the rolling Tuscan countryside.

Since it was built it has survived four major earthquakes and experts say its tilt is now just under four degrees and it is off centre four metres from vertical.

Giuseppe Bentivoglio, from the Opera Primaziale organisation that preserves the tower said: “It was on the verge of collapse, but we managed to stop the tilt and secure it.”

Boris Johnson was spotted at the tower in the summer and more than a million people visit the tower every year which is a UNESCO World Heritage Sight.

This story originally appeared in The Sun and has been republished with permission.</s>ROME (AP) - The Leaning Tower of Pisa isn't leaning so much anymore.

After more than two decades of efforts to straighten it, engineers say the famed Tuscan bell tower has recovered four centimeters (1.57 inches) more and is in better structural health than predicted.

ANSA news agency quotes a consultant to the international committee monitoring the tilt, Nunziante Squeglia, as saying that while the progressive recovery of tilt is good news, the overall structural health of the tower is more important.

The 12th-century tower reopened to the public in 2001 after being closed for more than a decade to let workers reduce its slant. By using hundreds of tons of lead counterweights at the base and extracting soil from under the foundations, engineers initially shaved 17 inches off the lean.

The Leaning Tower of Pisa (Torre di Pisa) is seen at right next to the medieval cathedral of Pisa, in Piazza dei Miracoli Square, in Pisa, Italy, Sunday, Jan. 2, 2012. On Thursday, Nov. 22, 2018, after more than two decades of efforts to straighten it, engineers say the famed Tuscan bell tower has recovered four centimeters (1.57 inches) and is in better structural health than predicted. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

A view of the Leaning Tower of Pisa (Torre di Pisa) in Piazza dei Miracoli Square, in Pisa, Italy, Sunday, Jan. 2, 2012. On Thursday, Nov. 22, 2018, after more than two decades of efforts to straighten it, engineers say the famed Tuscan bell tower has recovered four centimeters (1.57 inches) and is in better structural health than predicted. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)
The Leaning Tower of Pisa Surveillance Group reports the structure is leaning less, by 4 cm (1.6 in) over the past two decades.