[timmaxw]

Note, those pictures depict the towers as about 5x bigger than they actually were.

To get a true sense of scale, here's the same view on Google Earth: https://earth.google.com/web/@44.48152905,11.33820409,94.604... You can see the towers that are still standing. They visibly stick out from the shorter buildings, but they're nowhere near as big as in the picture.

[asimpletune]

I live in Bologna. The few towers that remain are all very tall, but the largest one is extremely tall.

It makes more sense if you see them from an opposing hill, but they literally tower.

https://share.icloud.com/photos/042jP_mGA1W1thRhqv3ez4p3w

[2-3-7-43-1807]

I think Google Earth might be more wrong than the illustration. One of the two Towers of Bologna is 97m. On GE it looks less than that. 97m is more than 33 stories.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Towers_of_Bologna

[jltsiren]

I think everything in the illustration is at least twice too high. The walled part of Bologna was ~1 km in diameter at that time, and the tallest towers were ~10% of that.

The model in Google Earth looks about right, at least if you compare it to this: https://static.bolognawelcome.com/immagini/ac/57/95/5d/20220...

[sidewndr46]

Why do people attempt to use "stories" as a measurement of height? There is no universal agreement for what a "story" is. 97 meters is in fact 97 meters.

[timmaxw]

Really? I zoomed in on the Towers of Bologna and then used the "measurement" tool to draw a 97m line on the ground. The line seems about as long as the tower is high. If you try that, do you get the same result?