‘A miracle and a warning’: Ancient tower collapse reveals a crisis facing modern Rome

Rome (CNN) — In video footage, it almost looks like an earthquake. The ancient Torre dei Conti, which has occupied a street corner of central Rome since medieval times, is suddenly enveloped in billowing clouds as falling bricks spew from a hole in its side. As more of its internal structure collapses, debris and dust shoot out from windows and openings, raining down on the street below.

“There was a loud explosion and then everything started falling — cement, rocks, people,” a waitress who was working nearby on the morning of November 3 told CNN. “Everyone started running away through the dust.” One worker involved in renovation work on the tower died and another was seriously injured in the incident, prompting a criminal investigation for negligence.

Two weeks after the partial collapse of the tower, a layer of ancient dust still coats the outdoor umbrellas of the Angelino ai Fori Osteria, a bustling restaurant in the heart of what was once Imperial Rome, overlooked by the Torre dei Conti.

Something else lingers here: nagging concern about what caused the damage in a city struggling to bring its infrastructure up to modern standards while preserving the ancient treasures that make it one of the world’s top tourist destinations.

While the Torre dei Conti has never been high on must-see lists, it was historically significant enough to merit an expensive renovation at the time of the collapse. Built between the 9th and 13th centuries and enjoying a checkered life of neglect and reconstruction, the tower’s irregular walls tell their own history of life in the Italian capital.

Many tourists encounter it on their way to see the nearby Colosseum, Roman Forum and the other treasures of the Capitoline hill, one of the world’s most spectacular open-air museums. More than 4.5 million people visit this area each year, according to the Rome Tourism Board.

What caused the collapse?

Potential causes for the tower’s collapse currently being investigated include human error in assembly of the renovation scaffolding or vibrations from deep drilling for the new Metro C subway line, which can regularly be felt and heard throughout the area.

Either scenario is significant for those worried about Rome’s future amid intensifying debate about how — or whether — a 2,777-year-old city can coexist with the needs of a modern European capital.

That no passersby were injured by flying debris during the Torre dei Conti’s collapse is “a miracle and a warning,” says archaeologist Tom Rankin, director of the Borromini Institute, a Rome-based educational establishment that focuses on sustainability.

“It’s sad that we always seem to have these conversations after a tragedy has taken place,” Rankin told CNN. “I refer to Rome as constantly contemporary, it is always evolving and its history has been a continuous stream of adaptations which is what makes it so fascinating.”

He believes that more transparency about many conservation and renovation projects involving ancient structures — such as the 7-million-euro (about $8 million) project to restore the Torre dei Conti — could play a role in avoiding tragedies like the partial collapse.

“When I heard about the collapse of the medieval Torre dei Conti I immediately went online to find out what project was being carried out but I came up empty-handed. I find it absurd that, all of the data we have today, we don’t automatically share documentation of projects of public interest,” he says.

“When we talk about the confluence of modernity with the past, it’s not just about the physical interventions but about access to information.” He believes that if people knew more about what was happening, they could make valid observations. “In a sense, crowdsourcing quality control is not a bad thing,” he says.

The city of Rome does publish some information about works in progress on its main website. An overview of the work being done in and around Torre dei Conti published in March 2025 displays maps and outlines several discoveries, including the skeletal remains of a man dating back to the 16th century dug up last year. It doesn’t provide specific details about what work was being done inside the tower when it fell.

‘Unique in the whole world’

Structural surveys and load tests carried out on the Torre dei Conti in June cleared it for work to proceed, officials said after the November 3 incident. That preparation included delicate asbestos removal. No excavation projects tied to the metro were going on under the tower, the city government added.

“This is an area that has been stratified over millennia,” Nicoletta Bernacchio, a city historian, is quoted as saying on the website. “With the end of the ancient era, the entire Imperial Forum complex underwent multiple transformations.”

Bernacchio says reports about the tower’s construction first appeared in the 13th century, crediting it to Pope Innocent III, of the Counts of Segni. “A very high tower, probably the tallest in Rome,” she adds, quoting Renaissance scholar Francesco Petrarch, who called it: “‘Toto orbe unica,’ unique in the whole world.”

Art historian and critic Ludovico Pratesi questions whether restoration has overtaken conservation in Italy — so that old monuments are now rebuilt instead of just being preserved in their existing state — and whether the country needs a new strategy to preserve its increasingly fragile historic structures.

He called for the creation of multigenerational bodies of experts and professionals, including archaeologists, art historians, urban planners, contemporary art curators, artists, and writers, to steer the conversation.

“These think tanks will respond to the call of history and develop contemporary enhancement strategies with concrete and operational projects,” he wrote in culture publication Artribune after the tower collapse.

Without intervention, he fears that cities like Rome will keep restoring monuments without asking whether they should. This, he says, is problematic at “a time when overtourism is sounding alarm bells in a city where the lack of a diverse cultural offering risks compromising the Trevi Fountain, Roman Forum, Pantheon, Vatican Museums.”

City of Rome authorities, working with the Culture Ministry and the Superintendency of the Colosseum Archaeological Park, last week announced a one-million euro ($1.2 million) plan to secure Torre dei Conti and its surrounding area, to be coordinated by firefighters.

In the meantime, modern life in this part of ancient Rome is largely back to normal. Nearby residential buildings, evacuated when the tower fell, have fresh laundry hanging from the windows again and nearby restaurants are open, though the area in front of the tower is now blocked by fences.

Down the street, work continues on the new metro system, a steady hum of progress echoing through a city that is still trying to find the balance between safeguarding its past and building its future.

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