L'Italo-Americano

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 15 ,2016 www.italoamericano.org 17 L'Italo-Americano SIMONE SANNIO ALL AROUND ITALY TRAVEL TIPS DESTINATIONS ACTIVITIES E v e r y b o d y k n o w s a b o u t the leaning tower in Pisa, b u t h o w m a n y p e o p l e have ever noticed that Bologna has two of them and that they a r e e v e n o l d e r ? I n f a c t , i t appears that the buildings affec- tionately known by the Lord-of- the-Ringsesque name of "Two Towers" have a lot to offer: one o f t h e m , t h e T o r r e d e g l i Asinelli, is much taller than the P i s a n o n e , w h i l e t h e o t h e r , called Garisenda, leans a little more. Let's climb both of them together. Built roughly between the y e a r s 1 1 0 9 a n d 1 1 1 9 b y t h e noble families that still give them their respective names, the Two Towers have since become one of the city's most prominent landmarks. Sure enough, they give us the best possible view on a time when Bologna was at the zenith of its power and was called "la turrita", that is "the city with many towers": as a m a t t e r o f f a c t , d u r i n g t h e Middle Ages hundreds of simi- lar towers were erected within the city walls, both for military purposes and to let each family assert its own power before all the others, as it was the case in t h e T u s c a n t o w n o f S a n Gimignano. Today, as much as twenty four of that sky-reaching build- ings still exist in Bologna, but probably none of them is as eye-catching as the entwined complex of the Two Towers. By standing at their very feet, just in front of a 17 th century statue of the local patron saint, St. Petronius, at first one cannot but look up to the sky and see the dizzy effect created by the inter- section of Garisenda's incline and Asinelli's height. Then, each vis itor w ould probably d e c i d e t o w a l k a r o u n d t h e m gently, still looking upwards to their tops and trying to discern the uniqueness in the symbiosis of the two, while also noticing a little hidden treasure on one of the slopes of the Garisenda: an inscription from Dante's Divine Comedy mentioning that very tower. A s w e m a y l e a r n f r o m a source as distinguished as the 31 st canto of the Inferno, by Dante's times the tower had probably already sunk into the ground because of its founda- tion problems. At about 4.0°, t h e c u r r e n t i n c l i n e o f t h e Garisenda slightly outreaches that of the Pisa Tower, even though some recent studies have found that the slope continues to grow by at least a millimeter for every passing year. What has The Torre degli Asinelli and the Garisenda Tower (48 meters tall). Photo by scrisman s u r e l y c h a n g e d s i n c e t h e S o m m o P o e t a h o n o r e d t h i s tower in his masterpiece – but also in an earlier, lesser-known s o n n e t n o w c o l l e c t e d i n h i s Rhymes – is the overall height of the Garisenda, which was formerly sixty meters tall, but h a d t o b e c u t d o w n t o f o r t y eight around 1350 to prevent it from falling. Unfortunately, the interior of the tower is no more available for visits due to simi- lar security reasons. A s f o r t h e n e a r i n g T o r r e degli Asinelli, once connected to the Garisenda by some wood- en passageways, scholars have suggested that it might have had just about the same height to begin with, but while the other building was chopped, this in turn was soon raised to its cur- rent ninety seven meters, mak- ing it the tallest leaning tower in Italy: by comparison, even the one in Pisa is forty meters shorter! Yet the fact remains that a sort of strange optical illusion seems to occur as you stare at the Two Towers from t h e b o t t o m u p : g i v e n t h e Asinelli's slight incline (only 1.3°) and its contrast with the Garisenda, for something like a second one doesn't even notice that the former actually leans, too. A l l i n a l l , t h e v i e w f r o m below is already spectacular… but not nearly as breath-taking as the one you can enjoy from above: nestled in the porticoes at the very base of the Asinelli Tower, surrounded by the old stores that were once the core of Bologna's Central Market, one f i n d s t h e d o o r t o t h e t o p . B e w a r e a l l y e w h o e n t e r , t h o u g h , i f y o u a r e a f r a i d o f heights: you'd have to climb a wooden winding stairway that gets narrower and steeper as you go up. But in the end, with as much as five hundred shaky steps left behind, this somehow creepy experience should final- ly reveal its benefits. By fighting your way to the top of the tower, you'd find yourself on the rampart that in medieval times, at least for a while, served as a prison, while being used as a real watchtower during World War II, when its survival was seriously threat- e n e d b y a i r r a i d s . B u t m o s t importantly, you'd happen to be rewarded with the wonders of a belvedere that is beyond any price: right under your feet the tiny Garisenda with its leaning profile, just a little ahead the Piazza Maggiore with its unfin- ished Basilica, and out there in the distance the hills on which t h e S a n c t u a r y o f S a n L u c a stands. A view that Goethe him- self described as "splendid"! Cityscape view from "Due torri" or two towers, Bologna, province Emilia-Romagna, Italia — Photo by M_Prusaczyk A View from the Two Leaning Towers of Bologna

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