Catalani Tower
Tucked away in the alleys of the historical centre stands Torre Catalani, a 16-metre-high building built in the 13th century by the noble Bolognese family of the same name. This was not the first tower the Catalani had built in Bologna. One of them was even almost as tall as the Asinelli Tower, but only the one in vicolo dello Spirito Santo has survived to this day.
In Romanesque style, Torre Catalani is lower and more massive than other towers in the city; the reason may lie in its intended use, which was defensive for the lower floors and residential for the upper ones. Inside one of the lunettes above the entrance doors was once a fresco, now almost completely disappeared, depicting Pope Celestine V, the founder of the order of the Celestine Friars. In 1789, the tower was in fact annexed to the adjacent monastery, which today houses the State Archives of Bologna.
The legend of the Catalani and the Galluzzi
Not far from the Catalani Tower is another tower, the
Galluzzi Tower, to which it is linked by
a legend of love and death that symbolises the infighting between Guelphs and Ghibellines that inflamed the city in the 13th century.
The story goes that a young member of the Catalans, belonging to the Ghibelline faction, asked the family to raise his tower so that he could admire
Virginia Galluzzi, of the Guelph faction. The two fell in love and married in great secrecy so as not to incur the wrath of rival families, but were soon discovered and forced to a sad end. Virginia was forced to commit suicide by her own hand, while her husband was killed.
The Divine Comedy and the Catalan Tower
The Catalans were mentioned by Dante Alighieri in his
Divine Comedy, specifically in Canto XXIII of Inferno dedicated to the hypocrites. Here Dante places Catalano, son of Guido Di Donna Ostia and captain of the Bolognese in the battle of Fossalta. The poet punishes him by depicting him walking around wearing a heavy lead cape covered in gold, a symbol of his sin in life, that is, having shown to the outside world what did not actually correspond to his thoughts.
Finally, in the Commedia we also find a reference to
Pope Celestine V, who had abdicated his pontifical duties only a few months after his election. Dante defines him as 'he who for cowardice made the great refusal', and places him among the “uncommitted” in Canto III of the Inferno. The sloths represented those who had never taken a stand, and therefore had never participated in the political and social life of their times, either for good or ill. That is why the poet depicts them as hopelessly chasing a flag that moves so quickly that they are condemned never to know what
it represents.
