Heritage: Bologna towers threaten to collapse

Reading this makes one’s heart soar. In fact, it would no longer be possible without doing anything. The two towers symbolizing Bologna are in danger of collapsing. Especially the Garisenda, the smaller of the two, which has been leaning for centuries. Something must be done today. The surveys have begun. I realized this this winter when I had to go around the small square where they are located in the heart of the medieval city. There were enormous machines there, the understanding of which on the ground did not seem immediate to me. Of course, I had asked myself questions. A very technical article by Stefano Luppi on the site of “Il giornale dell’arte” has now come to shed some somewhat subdued light on this. I will try to summarize all this for you while trying not to dilute the subject too much. The longer it went on, the less clear the text I read seemed to me.

Civil wars in the 12th century

But first a bit of history. In the Middle Ages, the struggles for influence between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines tore the country apart and, as a result, the flesh of its inhabitants. The former supported the sovereignty of the Pope. The latter that of the Emperor. This atmosphere of perpetual civil war led the great families to protect themselves in the city as in fortified castles. Hence the construction of countless towers, most of which have disappeared. If San Giminiano in Tuscany can still give an idea of ​​it, the Florentine “skyline” of the 12th century no longer exists. If the foundations of the towers remain on a few floors, they have been decapitated over time. According to historians, who do not agree among themselves, Bologna must have had between 80 and 100 of them. A real pincushion. There are less than twenty of them left, of which the Asinelli is the highest at 97.5 metres. Some fell as late as 1919. The Artenisi and the Riccadonna were then destroyed.

Let us now return to the twin towers, built between 1109 and 1119. They suffer from every possible and imaginable evil. First there is age. Then the sinking into the ground. You add a tired base, water infiltrations and the traffic around them. The Garisenda and the Asinelli are not isolated from urban tumult like the famous Tower of Pisa. They will nevertheless have to undergo the same treatment, extremely long and costly. We are talking about ten years and twenty to thirty million euros. Money that must now be found, even if heritage generally sensitizes the Italians more than the French (1). The first donations have arrived, while a collapse remains possible “at any moment”, as the pessimists assure us. They come from politicians or companies. Even the singer Gianni Morandi, who has known immense glory, has donated. He is originally from Emilia-Romagna.

At the bedside of the tower are engineers and academics, some of whom worked on the Tower of Pisa in 1997 or on the Garisenda between 1997 and 2000. It was then that which was frightening. A scientific project is still being developed. It will be presented this summer. Then validated. The competitive selection of companies will slow things down, because of the necessary legal procedures. The idea is to complete the safety measures by the end of 2024. The Garisenda is being asked to hold out until then. Italians still remember the fall of the St. Mark’s bell tower in Venice, even though it dates back to July 1902. More recently, the collapse in Pavia in 1989 of the Torre Civica (never rebuilt despite a 1994 project) had created a shock wave. Would there soon be others? And who would end up underneath if they did?

(1) In France, the built heritage would be far-right, if I believe one of the crazy texts that people (supposedly) of culture have circulated during the current legislative elections.

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Born in 1948, Etienne Dumont did studies in Geneva that were of little use to him. Latin, Greek, law. A failed lawyer, he branched out into journalism. Most often in the cultural sections, he worked from March 1974 to May 2013 at the “Tribune de Genève”, starting by talking about cinema. Then came the fine arts and books. Apart from that, as you can see, nothing to report.More informations

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