It is much less known than the Tower of Pisa, but it is somewhat more inclined than it. The 48-meter-high Garisenda tower, one of Bologna's two medieval skyscrapers and one of the best-known monuments of this city in northern Italy, is sick. The City Council has now decided to close the square where this icon of the Emilia-Romagna region is located to the public for a time for fear that it will collapse, after scientists from the University of Bologna have detected some anomalous changes in the oscillation of the monument.
Traditionally, the Garisenda tower is inclined about four degrees, but in recent months experts have seen these anomalous and worrying movements, so the authorities believe that it is best to close everything to more accurately monitor whether there is a real risk of collapse. The goal of the closure is to carry out more checks and install sensors to obtain definitive information on the state of health of the Garisenda. These sensors will be able to detect if there is any type of crack or if it sways more than it usually does due to the wind. Then the real restoration will begin.
“We have been working for weeks to safeguard the Garisenda, the symbol monument of Bologna, next to the Asinelli tower. It is more than a thousand years old and needs to be restored, and we have decided to start now,” the city's mayor, Matteo Lepore, tells this newspaper. The closures will affect several surrounding streets in the center of Bologna, which will also lead to a substantial change in the city's traffic routes. The City Council hopes to turn this problem into an opportunity for the area to become pedestrianized. The mayor warns that these works will last years and will change the “way of living in the historic center of the city”, so they have decided that the restoration is also an opportunity for the city and they have nominated the two towers to be recognized by the UNESCO as a world heritage site. “This will help us not only to promote them and give them visibility, but also for the maintenance and conservation of the monument in the future,” adds Lepore.
But the matter has caused a confrontation between the mayor, of the Democratic Party (PD), and the central government of Rome, where the right-wing coalition headed by Giorgia Meloni is in charge. The undersecretary in the Ministry of Culture Lucia Borgonzoni has criticized that the scientific team that has supervised the structure in the last five years has underestimated the situation, and promised that the Executive will contribute five million from the European recovery plan to save this monument. “The Government is moving to save the symbol tower of Bologna after the City Council has wasted time,” declared the politician, exponent of Matteo Salvini's League.
It is not the first time that Italy fears for the health of the Garisenda tower. Already in the 14th century it was shortened by ten meters due to fear that it would collapse. In 2019 it was reinforced with a kind of steel belt and last year they intervened to reinforce the base, but all this does not seem to have solved the problem. The Garisenda, built with the typical Bolognese red bricks at the beginning of the 12th century, began to suffer problems from the beginning, probably due to an error in its construction. So much so that even Dante Alighieri in the Divine Comedy compared her to the giant Antaeus. Nor is his sister, the Asinelli tower, completely straight.
Both towers bear witness to the period in which the noble families of Bologna built their towers to demonstrate their power and prestige. Specifically, the Garisenda was built by the Garisendi family, a wealthy family of Ghibellines, that is, those who supported the Holy Roman Empire, unlike the Guelphs, who were supporters of the Pope. The Asinelli tower is from the same period, and was also built by a Ghibelline family, although the Asinelli later moved to the other side. This building is much taller: it reaches 97.2 meters after being expanded several times, making it the tallest leaning tower in Italy. Unlike her sister, she does not appear to be in danger at the moment, but she is also being carefully monitored so that she does not come to harm.
