The Asinelli tower
97 m and 498 steps, with a view over the whole city.
Patrick Clenet โ CC BY-SA 3.0 ยท ะะฒะปะฐัะตะฝะบะพ โ CC BY-SA 3.0 ยท Fred Romero from Paris, France โ CC BY 2.0 ยท Fred Romero from Paris, France โ CC BY 2.0
**Two medieval towers standing side by side, both leaning, one of them shortened because it nearly fell** โ at the heart of Bologna, and its emblem. The **Asinelli tower** is **97 metres** tall, **the tallest leaning tower in Italy** โ far taller than Pisa's โ with a lean of about 1.3 metres. โ The **Garisenda tower** beside it is only **48 metres**, โ **and leans far more sharply** (about 3.2 metres): **it began tilting during construction and was deliberately cut down in the 14th century** for fear of collapse. โ **Dante mentions it in the Inferno**, likening it to a stooping giant. โ **Medieval Bologna was a "city of towers"**: it is estimated to have held **more than a hundred**, built by its noble families for prestige and defence; **only about twenty survive**. โ **The towers' condition is delicate** โ check before going.
97 m and 498 steps, with a view over the whole city.
A truncated, sharply leaning tower Dante names in the Inferno.
A medieval crossroads and Bologna's most familiar view.
Piazza di Porta Ravegnana, 40126 Bologna, Italy
**Rivalry between families, defence, and a trading position โ all three at once.** โ **The context**: in the **12th and 13th centuries** Bologna was a wealthy city-state on the **Via Emilia** trade road, **with a university drawing all of Europe**. โ **The first motive โ status**: **a tower was a declaration of wealth**. A noble family built higher than its neighbour **because height read directly as power** โ exactly as skyscrapers would later. โ **The second โ security**: Italian cities lived through **bloody factional conflict** (Guelphs and Ghibellines and their offshoots), **and a tower was a fortified refuge**, hard to storm: its door sat high above the ground, reached by a ladder that could be pulled up. โ **The third โ practical**: towers were used **for watching and signalling**, and sometimes for storage. โ **Why they vanished**: **many collapsed** on poor foundations in soft ground; **many were pulled down deliberately** as the city government grew stronger and set out to break the families' power; **and others became prisons and warehouses before being cleared** in later development. โ **About twenty remain** โ and these two are the best known.
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