Leaning for centuries at an alarming tilt, the Garisenda Tower in Bologna has suffered insults and injuries. Dickens called it “rather unsightly”, though excellent, while Goethe said it was “a sickening spectacle”. And then there were the earthquakes, the Allied bombing of the city during World War II, and the urbanization that doomed other towers.
The Garisenda has stood through it all, a beloved symbol of this medieval city, a reminder of the past when important families or communities built towers to remind others of their status and for defense.
But now, Garisenda is in trouble.
After sensors attached to the monument, which tilts at an angle of 3.6 degrees, detected “abnormal movements” last year, worried experts issued what they called an “engineering code red”.
In October, Garisenda was cordoned off, with bright red protective barriers placed along part of its perimeter to limit damage should the tower fall, and a team of experts began working on plans to protect it for the future while watching signs of impending trouble.
“It’s like a patient in intensive care, there are 64 instruments constantly monitoring his vital signs,” said Gilberto Dallavalle, a structural engineer responsible for stabilization interventions on the 157-foot tower since 1997.
He and other experts called in to try to protect the tower have now proposed a solution, looking to another famous leaning tower for the answer. Bologna Mayor Matteo Lepore announced last week that the city would adopt a temporary system of pylons and cables that proved successful in Pisa, home to its most famous leaning tower.
The idea is for two pylons to be attached to a special structure on the tower with cables that are expected to exert an opposing force should the tower begin to topple more dangerously.
Once Garisenda is stabilized so that workers can operate safely, work can begin to support the tower, especially the foundation, by injecting a selenite-compatible mortar mixture into a cavity at the base. A final phase will involve restoring the upper sections of the tower to ensure it remains stable for years to come.
“We need to secure the situation as soon as possible so it doesn’t get worse,” then more considered decisions can be made, Mr. Lepore said of the initial phase of the work.
Bologna may be best known for its hearty food (one of its nicknames is ‘la grassa’, the fat one). his university, which is the oldest in Italy (another of his nicknames is ‘la dotta’, the scholar). and the kilometers of its arcades, which three years ago were listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
But it was also once a city of many towers, a medieval Manhattan (and yes, that gave rise to yet another nickname, “la turrita,” the tower).
The towers, which once numbered around 100, are now mostly gone, cut down over the centuries or incorporated into palaces and modern buildings. Among the 20 that remain, the Garisenda and its much taller neighbor, the Asinelli, have become the focal points of the well-preserved medieval city center.
Award-winning symbols of the city, the towers are everywhere: on postcards, souvenir magnets, and even giant chocolate Easter eggs bearing a design of them on a macaroon surface.
Built in the 12th century by the Garisendi, a wealthy local family, the leaning tower began to lean while under construction and was shortened by about 40 feet in the 14th century due to fears it might collapse. Over the centuries, it has seen significant wear and tear, between exposure to the elements and two major fires. For at least 250 years, blacksmiths used a forge built into the base of the tower which significantly wore down the fragile selenite stones at the base. The forge operated until the end of the 19th century.
Modern concerns about the tower’s stability began about 25 years ago, and it has been closely monitored ever since.
Those efforts intensified about five years ago when it became apparent that “the rate of deterioration had accelerated,” said Raffaela Bruni, the engineer leading the expert committee tasked with saving the tower. In 2021, the base was girded with thick steel cables and wooden planks (picture oversized dental braces) and the dozens of sensors and other monitoring instruments that now pick up even small shifts.
Currently, the safeguards in place keep visitors about 65 feet away from the base of the tower.
The panel of experts decided on the pillar system after a recent fact-finding trip to Pisa, where they found that the same system could be used with some modifications. If all goes well, the pillars will be ready in six months.
In Pisa, work done on the tower extended its life expectancy by another 300 years, said Massimo Majowiecki, a Bologna-based engineer who worked in Pisa and is now on the team in his hometown. The cost of preserving Italy’s vast cultural heritage, he noted, is “a huge burden, but it also creates a great experience.”
There’s no way to tell whether the intervention in Bologna will work or for how long, but engineers hope computer modeling will help. A team from the University of Bologna is developing a digital twin for Garisenda to simulate the effects of any repairs.
For now, despite media reports questioning the tower’s stability, the local community seems mostly optimistic.
Garisenda “has been through a lot and never fallen,” said Maurizio Pizzirani, whose wife owns the Hotel Garisenda, a small inn overlooking the towers.
The hotel’s website now gets significant traffic, he said, thanks to a 24-hour webcam outside a window of the hotel’s breakfast room overlooking the towers, monitoring the work. (Three towers were demolished decades ago to make way for the building that the hotel partially occupies.)
Like other locals, Mr Pizzirani had views on the best course of action (starting with rerouting large buses), although he acknowledged the tower had “no instruction manual”.
Whatever the final solution, work on the tower is expected to be too expensive for the local government to handle alone.
A fundraising campaign promoted by Bologna City Hall reminds people that the towers are part of the city’s history and says “now you can be part of it too”. So far, the campaign has raised 4 million euros, or $4.3 million, according to a city spokesman, which has covered the cost of the work done so far. Italy’s culture ministry has allocated another 5 million euros for the restoration, and the regional government will also participate.
In the coming weeks, rock nets will be erected at the base of the tower in front of the Asinelli Tower and the adjacent Baroque Basilica of Sts. Bartolomeo and Gaetano for damage limitation in case of collapse.
The church is most at risk, but a recent visit to the interior showed no evidence that the priests had planned for the worst.
“I don’t have any specific expertise in the field, I will follow what the City Hall tells us,” said Reverend Stefano Ottani, parish priest of the basilica. “We have not been told to restrict access or close the basilica, so we are keeping it open.”
Ms. Bruni, the engineer, offered a different explanation: “They have a lot of faith in the Lord,” she said with a smile.
