The house and tower [1] named after the Margani, the family who dwelt there since the early 1300s, is one of many similar buildings that once existed in Rome, but one of the very few ones left standing. Towers used to be a status symbol, and their size was directly connected to the family's prestige, often causing great rivalry and harsh clashes between opposing clans; so in 1252 senator Brancaleone degli Andalò had them taken down.

Margana Tower acts as a landmark for the small surrounding neighborhood, still almost entirely made of centuries-old buildings and crossed by narrow lanes, fortunately spared from the consistent alterations carried out over the early 1900s in most other parts of the same district.

The overall look of the tower has remain practically unchanged; only a new window has been opened in recent times. It is still enclosed between the actual house at the back [2], almost as tall as the tower itself and no longer visible from the spot, due to another building on the right that now obstructs it, a much lower structure at the base [3], and the rest of the houses along via Margana [4]. Curiously, the street plate already hung from the tower there when Roesler Franz painted the view.
Above the doorway of the low structure a notice suggests that in the 1800s this part of the building may have likely been used as a shop; instead today an art dealer is housed on the ground floor of the tower. The rest of the house is regularly inhabited by privates.

In the medieval days, a typical custom was to use older fragments unearthed in the premises of one's own property as building material and as embellishments. In fact, the doorway of the low structure annexed to the tower is entirely framed by a roman frieze, while next to the tower's door an ancient column was incorporated in the wall.