Guinigi Tower

Listen for a moment. In the narrow lanes of Lucca, footsteps echo off warm red brick, and bicycle bells ring around tight corners. Now look up. High above the rooftops, where you would expect stone battlements, there are trees. Green, leafy, living trees, growing from the top of a medieval tower. This is the Guinigi Tower. It is one of the strangest sights in Tuscany, and one of the most loved.

Stand close to the base first. Run your eye along the brickwork. The bricks are small and tightly laid, in shades of rust, salmon, and faded orange. Here and there you can see white stone set into the walls, around windows and along the lower courses. Brick was the everyday building material of medieval Lucca. It was cheaper than cut stone, and local kilns could produce it in huge quantities. The result is a city that glows a warm colour in the late afternoon.

The tower belongs to a larger complex of buildings. These were the homes of the Guinigi family, one of the wealthiest merchant families in Lucca during the late Middle Ages. They grew rich through trade and banking, and silk was central to the city's economy in that era. Lucca was famous across Europe for its silk cloth. Families like the Guinigi turned that trade into money, and then turned money into brick.

Why build a tower at all? In medieval Italian cities, a tower was a statement. It said: we are powerful, we are here, and we can defend ourselves. Rival families built towers side by side, each trying to stand taller than the next. Lucca once had many of them — far more than you can see today. Most were cut down or demolished over the centuries. This one survived, along with only a handful of others.

The Guinigi family did not stop at wealth. In the early fifteenth century, one member of the family, Paolo Guinigi, became lord of Lucca and ruled the city for around three decades. His time in power was a high point for the family name. It did not last. He lost power in 1430, and the family's political fortunes faded after that. But the tower stayed, and so did the trees.

Now, the trees. They are holm oaks — an evergreen oak common around the Mediterranean, with small, dark, leathery leaves. They grow in a roof garden at the very top, planted in soil held inside raised brick beds. Nobody can say with total certainty why the garden was first created. Some describe it as a symbol of rebirth and renewal. Others simply see it as a display of taste and wealth. Whatever the reason, the oaks have become the symbol of the tower itself.

Here is something many visitors miss. Walk a little distance away and look back from different streets. The tower appears and disappears between the buildings. From some corners you see only the green crown floating above the roofs, almost as if a small forest is hanging in the sky. Lucca's streets are narrow and curving, so the view changes every few steps. It is worth playing this game as you wander.

If you choose to climb, be ready for a workout. There are more than two hundred steps, mostly on stone and metal staircases that turn inside the tower walls. The climb is steady rather than dangerous, but it is tight in places. As you rise, small windows give you glimpses of the city. Take your time. The air grows cooler and the noise of the streets grows softer the higher you go.

At the top, you step out into the garden. The oaks give shade on a hot day, and the leaves move in the breeze. Then the view opens in every direction. Red-tiled roofs stretch out below you, broken by church bell towers and the green line of the city walls. On a clear day, the mountains rise to the north. These are the Apuan Alps, famous for their marble quarries.

Now look for one special shape among the rooftops. Below you, slightly to the north, there is an oval ring of houses around an open space. This is the Piazza dell'Anfiteatro. Its shape comes from a Roman amphitheatre — an arena for public games — that once stood on this spot. Over the centuries, people built homes into the old structure. The arena disappeared, but its outline stayed in the plan of the houses.

Scan the skyline for other landmarks. The white facade of the church of San Michele in Foro rises in the old centre, with a figure of the archangel Michael on its peak. The cathedral of San Martino stands to the south and east. And all around the old town runs the ring of city walls. They are wide enough on top to walk and cycle along, lined with trees. Locals use them every day for evening strolls.

Those walls tell you something important about Lucca. The city kept its independence for centuries as a small republic, surrounded by larger and more powerful neighbours. Defence mattered. Today the walls are a park, and the towers are viewpoints, but both were born from the same need for safety. Lucca is also the birthplace of the composer Giacomo Puccini, and music still drifts through its churches and squares in the evenings.

When you come back down, pause again at the foot of the tower. Look at the doorways and the arched windows of the old Guinigi houses beside it. Some windows are divided by slim columns into two, three, or even four openings. These details belonged to a family that wanted to be seen. Six centuries later, people still stop and look up, exactly as the builders intended.

As you walk away, keep glancing back over your shoulder. The trees will follow you through the gaps between the roofs, a small patch of green against the sky. Notice the sound of the city around you — the bells, the voices, the bicycles. You are standing in a town that kept its shape for hundreds of years. And on top of one old brick tower, a few oak trees are still growing.