Guinigi Tower

This guide to the Guinigi Tower in Lucca begins with Paolo Guinigi, pacing a prison cell in Pavia in 1432, and works back through how his family clawed its way to power: three brothers lost to plague, an eldest brother murdered in an ambush, and Paolo left as the last man standing to rule Lucca for three decades. It follows the seven holm oaks planted on the tower's rooftop, one for each brother, and the war with Florence and siege that finally turned the city against him. Stand beneath those same oaks, forty-five meters above the street, and look up at the canopies that have grown there since.