Every Bolognese in a foreign land is moved by a memory of the tower. It is not I who says so: Stendhal has asserted as much in 1816, when Asinelli and Garisenda had been for some time the symbol of the city, also defined as the towered forest, which, in 1543, appeared to Leandro Alberti as a large vessel run aground in the plains, the Ansinelli tower being the mastermast. And, almost a century after, in 1645, the same image was used by English writer John Evelyn, in the diary of his Italian journey.
Much more recently, Eugenio Riccomini defined Bologna as a medieval Manhattan for the numerous and extraordinary towers standing out against the sky. Their origin, as elements of architecture, is lost in time, if it is true as they say, that in the period of the Assyrians and the Babylonians, in the only city of Ninu(w)a there were more than 150 of these towers and that along the Tigris Valley, there were even the remains of towers isolated from the walls.
But if originally the objective in building the towers was purely for defence or surveillance purposes, in the medieval times in Bologna (period
of intense local fourishing of this very original architectural element) other reasons justified the building of tours: the necessity to take maximum advantage, in height, of the scarce space available between the upper town, and the will to demonstrate power and the importance of one's own family. The tower, in other words, served as a status symbol, as well as a means of defence. When did this "tower era" begin in Bologna, we may ask? The specific date is not known (and it would be even difficult to establish it), but what is known is when was written the last agreement, found in the city's archives, for the construction of one of the tower: 1196. There are numerous similar documents prior to that, but no successive ones are found. It is therefore between the twelfth and the thirteenth century that Bologna recorded the highest concentration of towers of its history. How many were there? It is not known exactly how many. We can jump ahead many centuries and listen to Count Giovanni Gozzadini who, in his monograph about the noble Bolognese towers published in 1875, declares that between the eleventh and the fourteenth century there were 193, the names and descriptions are all written. Today, there are a little over 20 of them left: two (the Asinelli and the Garisenda) risen as the trademark of the city; others, intact as well despite the passage of time, can be seen in the evocative little street of the historical centre (Uguzzoni; Prendiparte known as Coronata; Azzoguidi known as Altabella; Galluzzi); and others still, transformed in covered roof-terraces or house buildings, incorporated in posterior buildings. It is worth to mention at least five other ones which unfortunately remain only a memory: the Riccadonna, the Artenisi and the Guidozagni, first. Their structures appeared a few tens of meters from the Asinelli and the Garisenda, during the course of the demolition of part of what was called the Middle Market when, in 1910, urban modernization took place in the centre to make room for new roads. After a lengthy and vivid controversy, engineers headed by Ceri got the upper hand and the three medieval towers were demolished. In another period, in 1390, the Cornacchina tower was also demolished; it was described by chronicler Pietro di Mattilo as "high and beautiful,
it was the square's nun, opposite the hospital of the death": so, it would rise next to the hospital, today Portico della Morte, and was demolished to make place to the new church of San Petronio. The story of the Torre della Magione was more eventful: next to the church of S. Maria del Tempio (or della Magione for its closeness to Magione dei Cavalieri Templari), it stood, 24 meters high next to the old number 213 of Strada Maggiore and, isolated, it blocked the view of the sacred building. In its History of Bologna, brother Cherubino Ghirardacci wrote that Achille Malvezzi, prior of the Ordine dei Cavalieri Gerosolimitani di Malta, decided to have it moved and asked Aristotile Fioravanti, engineer of the Municipality of Bologna and an excellent architect, who, on August 8th, 1455, accomplished the daunting task: he had it roll on cylinders of Durmast Oak encircled with iron and moved it by 18.24 meters, positioning it on the corner of Malgrà, closer to the church. It does not end here.
In March 1825, Luigi Aldini, who had become the
owner, had the tower demolished and today as a reminiscence of the tower,
there is a small commemorative plaque placed by the City of Bologna, in
the place where it first was, at the corner of Strada Maggiore and Vicolo
Malgrado.