The soil is subsiding under the famous leaning tower in Italy: tourists and guests are no longer allowed there

Dante Alighieri was so enchanted that he wrote about her twice: in the Divine Comedy and in a sonnet. Charles Dickens was struck by it during his trip to Italy. And now the medieval “leaning” Garisenda tower in Bologna is causing a completely modern reaction from the public, concerned that the architectural monument may be sagging. Writes about this CNN.

Photo: IStock

Streets around the Garisenda, one of Bologna's "twin towers" located in the city center, are closed as scientists monitor the monument for signs of cracking and shifting of the structure.

The 48-metre (158 ft) tower was built in the XNUMXth century, when Bologna was a mini-Manhattan, with dozens of towers reaching into the sky, each built by local families trying to make their tower taller than the last. But Garisenda leans at an angle of four degrees—only slightly more vertical than the Leaning Tower of Pisa, which has a lean angle of five degrees. She bent over already at the beginning of the XNUMXth century, when Dante wrote “Inferno,” the first part of his famous poem, later called “The Divine Comedy,” in which he described the dizzying sensations that arise when looking at Garisenda’s bent side. Today, a memorial plaque is installed on the tower in memory of the sonnet dedicated to her.

Shortened in later years, it stands in the city center next to the Asinelli Tower - twice the height that tourists can climb.

On the subject: In Italy, a tourist damaged a XNUMXth-century sculpture: he climbed on it to take a selfie

Over the weekend, the city's mayor, Matteo Lepore, closed off the area around the towers after meeting with the city's heritage manager and a commission of scientists that has been monitoring the pair since 2018. Experts want, as he announced at a city council meeting, “to carry out further monitoring and install sensors in order to have definitive information about Garisenda’s health.”

Acoustic sensors were installed around the tower to monitor the appearance of cracks and creaks, as well as a pendulum to track movement.

Visitor access to the Asinelli Tower has also been stopped, and a pendulum will be installed on the higher one.

According to the mayor, the closure of the area is not so much about immediate safety concerns, but so that the devices can collect more accurate data.

Testing will continue through the end of the week to see if the tower does anything else or just “tilts like it has done since it was built,” Lepore said, adding that all towers and skyscrapers move up to a certain threshold.

He noted that the tower "has been leaning for centuries and has been the subject of various interventions over the decades."

The report, due at the end of November, will be prepared every two years, he said. The Council has already selected a company to carry out all the necessary work, which was engaged in the restoration of the collapsed Morandi Bridge in Genoa. In addition, a committee will be formed to restore the bridge under the leadership of the council.

Roads will be closed on October 27, although buses may no longer be allowed to travel around the towers, according to local media reports.

Calling the tower “a symbol of our city along with the Asinelli Tower” and vowing to “protect Garisenda as a monument,” Lepore told the council, “We are working to do what is necessary.”

Work began after Lucia Borgonzoni, Italy's deputy culture minister, raised the alarm about the tower's safety. Borgonzoni, a politician from the Emilia-Romagna region of which Bologna is the capital, previously unsuccessfully ran for mayor of the city in 2016 and president of the region in 2019. Lepore represents the centre-left Democratic Party and her opposition on the council believes she failed to protect the tower.

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Borgonzoni said she was "concerned" about the fluctuations recorded so far and suggested that the scientific committee monitoring them for five years had "underestimated the situation."

On Monday, Lepore responded to the reproaches with the following: “I will refrain from participating in political debates not because I do not want to participate in them, but because I believe that if important decisions need to be made, including correct ones from an institutional point of view, then it’s calm and with a clear conscience.”

Meanwhile, local residents continue to work as usual.

“We are not afraid at all,” said Fabio Bergonzini, a tour guide in the city. “We Bologneses never felt that this was a problem. Safety is always important, of course they should investigate, but I don't believe the tower will fall."

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