Page 142 - WINE DINE AND TRAVEL FALL 2024 SPAIN

Nothing better tells this story than
Bologna’s twin leaning towers, Asinelli
and Garisenda, which peer down on a
busy city intersection and list toward
each other as if reeling from a night of
too much Lambrusco.
Tower construction was a trend in
Italian cities in the Middle Ages. Besides
Pisa, San Gimignano in Tuscany stands as
a living museum to the tower building
craze, with fourteen of its original sev-
enty-two towers still standing.
At the peak of this trend some one
hundred twenty towers probably spiked
Bologna’s skyline between the 1000s and
the 1400s, making the city a sort of me-
dieval Manhattan. One historian esti-
mates there were as many as one
hundred eighty, and today about twenty
of these towers still stand. Don’t be sur-
prised if you turn a corner on a narrow
lane to find yourself looking up at a 200-
foot structure soaring over neighbor-
hood rooftops.
Asinelli and Garisenda are prime ex-
amples of the building craze. Asinelli, at
318 feet, is the taller, while Garisenda
reaches 157 feet. Built between 1019 and
1029, the towers are named for the fami-
lies that constructed them. During their
primacy they served variously as
fortresses, residences and even jails, as
rival families fought each other in
Bologna’s labyrinthine lanes for power
and wealth. Think Montagues and Ca-

A view of the 318-foot-tall Asinelli Tower peering
down Via Rizzoli. Built in the late 1000s, both
towers lean.
Right: The Basilica of San Petronio began
construction in 1390 and is the fifth largest
church on the Italian Peninsula. Plans to
complete a marble facade were never realized.

142 WINE DINE & TRAVEL MAGAZINE FALL 2024