Monument: Two Towers
The Two Towers, both of them leaning, are the symbol of Bologna, and the most prominent of the Towers of Bologna.
They are located at the intersection of the roads that lead to the five gates of the old ring wall (mura dei torresotti). The taller one is called the Asinelli while the smaller but more leaning tower is called the Garisenda. Their names derive from the families which are traditionally credited with having been constructed between 1109 and 1119.
Their construction was a competition between the two families to show which was the more powerful family. However, the scarcity of documents from this early period makes this in reality rather uncertain. The name of the Asinelli family, for example, is documented for the first time actually only in 1185, almost 70 years after the presumed construction of the tower which is attributed to them.
