Lodging
Torre Prendiparte
Twelfth-century fortified tower whose upper cells still bear prisoners' scratched graffiti and lamentations.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Torre Prendiparte in Bologna starts with a question: who scratched the faint lamentations and stick-figure sketches into the plaster of a third-floor cell, using nothing but a broken piece of the wall itself? From there it follows the sixty-meter tower through nine hundred years of owners, from the Prendiparte family who raised it in the eleven hundreds, through seizures and sales, to the day an eighteenth-century cardinal turned it into a prison. Look closely at the plaster on the third floor, where the marks are easiest to make out.
This audio guide was created using AI.