Piazza Maggiore and the Two Towers
The heart of 'la Dotta' and the Asinelli tower
Piazza Maggiore is the heart of Bologna, called "la Dotta" (the learned) for its ancient university, "la Grassa" (the fat) for its cuisine and "la Rossa" (the red) for the colour of its roofs. The square is surrounded by some of the city's most important buildings: the Basilica of San Petronio, one of the largest churches in the world, begun in 1390 and never completed, with its unfinished façade half covered with marble, and inside the meridian line drawn on the floor in 1655 by the astronomer Giovanni Domenico Cassini, 67 metres long; the Palazzo d'Accursio, the town hall, with its art collections; and the Palazzo del Podestà, under whose vault, the Voltone, a curious acoustic effect lets you whisper in one corner and be heard in the opposite one. In the adjacent Piazza del Nettuno stands the Fountain of Neptune, a masterpiece in bronze by Giambologna of the 1560s.
A few steps away, at the end of Via Rizzoli, rise the Two Towers, the symbol of the city, survivors of the dozens of towers built by the noble families in the Middle Ages: the Asinelli Tower, about 97 metres high, with almost 500 steps, and the Garisenda, 48 metres, strongly leaning, mentioned by Dante in the Inferno. Since 2023, the Garisenda has been surrounded by a safety area for consolidation work, and the climb up the Asinelli has been suspended.
Tip: check whether the climb up the Asinelli has reopened; for a view over the roofs, go up to the terrace of San Petronio, accessible with a lift.
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