Fifteen centuries in a single mechanism
The Clock Tower is leaning against Palace of Reason. It was built on a pre-existing 13th-century building. Luca Fancelli's project was carried out between 1472 and 1473, by order of the Marquis Ludovico II Gonzaga. The building was modified in 1600 by the court architect Anton Maria Viani who first added the crowning (1612) and then the niche which houses the statue of the Virgin (1639).
The Tower owes its name to this very fact Astronomical-astrological clock which indicates the hours, marked by Roman numerals, the calendar, the phases of the moon and the position of the sun in the zodiac. The clock was made in 1473 by Bartolomeo Manfredi, clock mechanic, mathematician and court astrologer.
Inside the Tower, you can visit the Time Museum, where the clock mechanisms are on display and where it is still possible to see how they work.
