If the Leaning Tower of Pisa stood straight, people wouldn’t care about it. We love it for its flaw. It reminds us of us — beautiful, but a bit off-center. So we pose with it and interact with it in a way that we do with few others buildings or works of art. It calls to our playful side, the part of us that says it’s OK not to be perfect. In front of this wonderful error of architecture, fathers bounce their children on their bellies, entire families form bridges with the Tower in the middle, and people pretend to hold the darn thing up for pictures taken on their iPads.

I may not be Dante — heck, I’m not even Italian — but I know a divine comedy when I see one.

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