Tourist attraction
The Two Towers: Garisenda & Asinelli
Twin medieval brick towers, one leaning sharply, built by rival noble families racing to outbuild each other.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to the Two Towers in Bologna opens with an alarm ringing across Piazza di Porta Ravegnana in October 2023, then rewinds to 1109, when the rival Asinelli and Garisenda families raced to build the tallest private tower in the city as a show of wealth. It follows how the Asinelli tower rose straight and true to roughly seventy meters while the Garisenda's foundation began giving way almost immediately, and how, by the 1360s, the city had ordered the top sliced off. Stand back in the piazza and compare the two silhouettes before you decide which family really won.
This audio guide was created using AI.