Discover Piazza dei Signori

A broad open square west of the market squares, closed at one end by a tall arched tower carrying a large astronomical clock face in blue and gold. A long white loggia runs down one side; the rest is plain-fronted buildings over an open paved expanse, with no market and nothing in the middle.

The Torre dell'Orologio dominates the western end, its clock face a large gilded disc showing the hour, the moon's phase and the position of the sun in the zodiac. Famously it shows only eleven signs -- Libra is absent -- which has generated centuries of local legend about a slighted clockmaker, though the likeliest explanation is simply the way the 1428 rebuild divided the dial.

The tower stands in the middle of the Palazzo del Capitanio, the Venetian governor's residence, whose Renaissance arch was cut through the older Carraresi fabric in the 1530s.

Along the northern side runs the Loggia del Consiglio of 1523, an elegant Venetian-Renaissance arcade that was the council's own building and is the most refined piece of architecture on the square.