That was actually one of the reasons I learned. The rich families wanted to show how rich they were so they built towers. Then other rich families built their own, preferably bigger, to show that they had a bigger penis more money.
Are there any facts to back that up? I don't know. I heard it ~25 years ago and I don't remember the source. Though, I was in Bologna around that time so possibly from a tour or possibly from some drunk guy at a party.
Those are words I've never seen, thanks. I guess I can see that, imagine some smelly poor showing up on a nag in a burlap caparison then some medieval influencer on a Percheron with a purple silk caparison pulls up alongside? All the fair maidens faint right there!
Somewhere in an alternative dimension where they're not fictional, Dagwood is very confused by his sudden boner and Blondie's dinner guests are scandalized.
local superstition suggests that those who climb the Tower of Asinelli to the top will never finish their studies—bad luck for students, but good news for those who never tire of learning!
Do you see a direction without buildings there so it can topple over safely? That's the main issue.
These towers are significantly different from a mud brick stack, too. The fact that they're square is important. They're also built with different materials: instead of a lattice of uniform bricks and mortar, they are built with two layers of masonry filled with assorted stones and mortar. Not the kind of building we're used to demolish, making it harder to predict.
I say that because some towers are leaning weirdly, and some windows are very diffused. It’s too low res to be to an “artistic renderin,” and it’s just looks messy (as an image). I’ve seen better renders of the towers of Bologna.
If it’s not AI, I’ll across out the top bir. I’m sorry I’m just super skeptical nowadays.
Pretty sure it's just a close-up photo of this model reconstruction from 1917. This article contains a higher-res version of the photo where you can see that it's just the roughly painted model houses making it look somewhat AI-like.
Visited Bologna about 8 years ago and visited these towers. There was a ton of supports at the base to keep it from falling down and even then it was still leaning pretty hard.
I met some Italians that doesn't care about it and think it's a waste of money.
There's San Gimignano left of you want to get a real life feel of how it was. The town lies on an important route and local families showed off by showing their massive dongs of towers.
59 Comments
witty_username@feddit.nl · 86 pts · 294d
mech@feddit.org · 81 pts · 294d
My guess is it was about who has the longest one.
clif@lemmy.world · 44 pts · 294d
That was actually one of the reasons I learned. The rich families wanted to show how rich they were so they built towers. Then other rich families built their own, preferably bigger, to show that they had
a bigger penismore money.Are there any facts to back that up? I don't know. I heard it ~25 years ago and I don't remember the source. Though, I was in Bologna around that time so possibly from a tour or possibly from some drunk guy at a party.
ugo@feddit.it · 18 pts · 294d
HugeNerd@lemmy.ca · 6 pts · 294d
Or horse. I wonder what the 12th century equivalent of a modified tailpipe was?
teft@piefed.social · 5 pts · 294d
Chanfrons and caparisons.
HugeNerd@lemmy.ca · 5 pts · 294d
Those are words I've never seen, thanks. I guess I can see that, imagine some smelly poor showing up on a nag in a burlap caparison then some medieval influencer on a Percheron with a purple silk caparison pulls up alongside? All the fair maidens faint right there!
Eq0@literature.cafe · 1 pts · 290d
Take also meant more unstable, so there was a component of an engineering challenge.
teft@piefed.social · 16 pts · 294d
It’s not about height, it’s about girth. You need a properly wide base and taper in order to
pleasehouse so many soldiers.kbal@fedia.io · 29 pts · 294d
Another hypothesis is that the city was taken over by wizards.
clif@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 294d
I choose to believe this one.
SkybreakerEngineer@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 294d
Hey, just because they use magic doesn't mean they're wizards. The biggest investiture tower, Urithiru, is actually associated with paladins
starlinguk@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 294d
Nah, they just used them to show off. My tower is bigger than yours.
Blackmist@feddit.uk · 9 pts · 294d
Yeah, somebody of influence built one, and the rest of the city that could afford to just followed.
The TikTok Stanley Cup craze of the 1100s.
vonxylofon@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 294d
Keeping up with the Giovannis.
ThePantser@sh.itjust.works · 79 pts · 294d
Towers of Bologna
Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 23 pts · 294d
Somewhere in an alternative dimension where they're not fictional, Dagwood is very confused by his sudden boner and Blondie's dinner guests are scandalized.
RizzRustbolt@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 294d
At least we know why they're married now.
Zer0_F0x@lemmy.world · 71 pts · 294d
So my Age of Empires build strategy was historically accurate
Tattorack@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 294d
So is fast castle.
Just look what the Normans did to stabilise England.
quetzaldilla@lemmy.world · 28 pts · 294d
Clearly the work of wizards.
ICastFist@programming.dev · 12 pts · 294d
That does sound a lot like wizards
tino@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 293d
I remember going up there with a friend when we were in study trip! oh wait...
whotookkarl@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 7 pts · 294d
Steeplejacks, but pretty much the same thing
Blackmist@feddit.uk · 3 pts · 294d
Only drunker.
EvacuateSoul@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 294d
You laugh, but people who believe the Tartarian Empire conspiracy theory point to this as one of the things lost after the "mud floods" lol.
homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world · 20 pts · 294d
Obviously they were there to guard the cost-saving but insecurely designed trench leading to the small exhaust port.
BrokenGlepnir@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 294d
Seems like it would be a nightmare to take them down. Demolition back then must have been pretty methodical, taking it apart from the top to bottom.
ranzispa@mander.xyz · 5 pts · 294d
Much easier than that: just wait for a while and there won't be no tower anymore.
Either it falls down on its own or people come around to pick a few bricks and stones to build their own house.
acockworkorange@mander.xyz · 4 pts · 294d
Look around them. It would have to be like that today too. Too crowded.
Lojcs@piefed.social · 3 pts · 294d
Image isn't real
Blumpkinhead@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 294d
Are you suggesting that this isn't a real photograph of 12th century Bologna??
acockworkorange@mander.xyz · 4 pts · 294d
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Bologna+towers&ia=images&iax=images
Here are real images. Tell me how you can safely demolish those with explosives while guaranteeing it's not going to topple over adjacent buildings.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 294d
demolish the adjacent buildings first
acockworkorange@mander.xyz · 3 pts · 294d
Use the tower and demolish them all in one fell swoop! Demolitionists hate this one trick!
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 294d
one big explosion is less fun than a lot of little explosions and one big explosion
CrackedLinuxISO@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 294d
I'm sure the construction of towers is different from chimney stacks, but Fred Dibnah did it with a bunch of firewood and some shovels.
https://youtu.be/0L1WOnR2KBY
acockworkorange@mander.xyz · 3 pts · 294d
Do you see a direction without buildings there so it can topple over safely? That's the main issue.
These towers are significantly different from a mud brick stack, too. The fact that they're square is important. They're also built with different materials: instead of a lattice of uniform bricks and mortar, they are built with two layers of masonry filled with assorted stones and mortar. Not the kind of building we're used to demolish, making it harder to predict.
Lojcs@piefed.social · 1 pts · 294d
I don't know? But it's definitely easier than what the picture in the post suggests
acockworkorange@mander.xyz · -1 pts · 294d
Maybe just stick to the first sentence.
Lojcs@piefed.social · 0 pts · 294d
? Demolishing 2 detached towers is definitely easier than 50 built directly on buildings.
starlinguk@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 294d
Towers like this still exist in places like San Gimignano.
BayKek@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 294d
The present past youtube channel has a video on this: https://youtu.be/ikg3-GQLg3g
maniacalmanicmania@aussie.zone · 2 pts · 294d
Thanks for sharing.
dream_weasel@sh.itjust.works · 8 pts · 294d
Sounds like bologna to me.
Flames5123@sh.itjust.works · 8 pts · 294d
Is this an AI image? Stop that.
I say that because some towers are leaning weirdly, and some windows are very diffused. It’s too low res to be to an “artistic renderin,” and it’s just looks messy (as an image). I’ve seen better renders of the towers of Bologna.
If it’s not AI, I’ll across out the top bir. I’m sorry I’m just super skeptical nowadays.
Evotech@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 294d
I'm sure it's an aerial image from that time
87Six@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 293d
Yea that's why it's low rez, the government pigeons were still in development
ValeCrafter@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 294d
It appears to be a wooden model. The image appeared in this blog post from 2022. At the end of the blog post, there is the wooden model. https://thepastabbatical.substack.com/p/the-towers-of-bologna
PonyOfWar@pawb.social · 13 pts · 294d
Pretty sure it's just a close-up photo of this model reconstruction from 1917. This article contains a higher-res version of the photo where you can see that it's just the roughly painted model houses making it look somewhat AI-like.
BananaTrifleViolin@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 294d
Yeah linking to a Wikipedia article.But throwing in random AI art is frustrating. This picture is not on the Wikipedia page.
Flames5123@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 294d
Sam_Bass@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 294d
And they were never able to replicate that design for the meat rolls
Intikhan@eviltoast.org · 4 pts · 294d
Isn't a way to cool the air coming in ?
acockworkorange@mander.xyz · 20 pts · 294d
You're thinking of the structures that used underground water and winds to get evaporative cooling in Iran, the Windcatchers.
Unpigged@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 293d
Nope. Nice idea but these were status symbols most of all, and had a bit of defensive use.
jaschen306@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 293d
Visited Bologna about 8 years ago and visited these towers. There was a ton of supports at the base to keep it from falling down and even then it was still leaning pretty hard.
I met some Italians that doesn't care about it and think it's a waste of money.
BilSabab@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 293d
Did we have an Assassin's Creed about that?
qarbone@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 294d
The only Italian town of towers I recognize is "San Gimignano". Shoutout to AC2.
Unpigged@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 293d
There's San Gimignano left of you want to get a real life feel of how it was. The town lies on an important route and local families showed off by showing their massive dongs of towers.
Itdidnttrickledown@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 294d
Why? Protection? Cooling?
drolex@sopuli.xyz · -26 pts · 294d
"I'm heterosexual BTW"