Casa del boia

This guide to Casa del boia in Lucca starts at a squat cannon tower built into the city walls, one that Lucca's engineers nicknamed Bastardo before 1524, its four gun ports and heavy vaulted ceiling all balanced on a single stone pillar. You'll hear how the walls swallow so much space that restorers, working through 2013 and 2014, found barely a thousand square meters usable inside, and how they spent 389 days resetting original stone rather than patching with new brick. A house was later built on top, and it's from the man who lived there that the tower gets its current name. Look up at the vault resting on that one pillar.