Città turrite: A Visual and Urban Sociological Study on the Phenomenon of Italian Tower Cities

Gian Marco Hölk, M.A.

In the 11th century, alongside the emergence of the independent communi, the construction of so-called family towers gave rise to an urban typology that would soon come to characterize the entire region of Northern Italy. Probably the best-known example that still bears witness to this architectural culture in its medieval form is the Tuscan town of San Gimignano. Its 15 surviving family towers (out of an original 72) continue to dominate the town’s skyline to this day. In Bologna, Rome, Pavia, Florence, and many other cities, too, there are still numerous examples of towers that once numbered well over one hundred, though many of them – as elsewhere – have been shortened or incorporated into newer buildings. Although it must be assumed that every major commune in Northern Italy during the Middle Ages was such a ‘tower city‘, research has so far paid little attention to this urban phenomenon. The dissertation project focuses specifically on Italian cities where a concentration of private tower structures can be documented, comparing various examples of these urban spaces and relating them to one another. The study focuses on the cityscape in its three ‘states of aggregation’: graphic, built, and imagined. The analysis of these different visual forms in which the ‘tower city’ is represented is intended to enable objective conclusions to be drawn about this phenomenon.