Discover Torre dell'Orologio

A Renaissance tower standing over an archway on the north side of Piazza San Marco, with the Mercerie passing beneath it out of the square. A blue and gold astronomical dial fills the lower face, marked with Roman numerals and ringed by the zodiac and the phases of the moon. Above it a winged lion sits on a blue ground, and at the top an open terrace carries a bell between two bronze figures.

Mauro Codussi's design integrates the clock face, the astronomical dial, and the bell-striking Moors into a single vertical composition, unusual for combining a timekeeping instrument with a triumphal-arch-like gateway at street level. The two side wings, added slightly later, are lower and plainer than the central tower, keeping the clock face as the composition's clear focal point.

The clock mechanism sits behind the astronomical dial, a blue and gold face marked with Roman numerals for the hour and a separate ring showing the zodiac and moon phases -- a level of astronomical detail typical of major public clocks in this period, when a clock's accuracy and sophistication were themselves a mark of civic prestige.