Discover Torre dell'Orologio

A tall tower closing the west end of Piazza dei Signori, pierced at its base by a single high archway that the street runs through. Above the arch sits a large circular astronomical dial in blue and gold, marked with the hours and ringed by the zodiac; above that the tower rises plain to a crenellated top.

The dial is a large gilded disc on blue, read from the square below. It gives the hour on a 24-division scale, the lunar phase, and the position of the sun against the zodiac -- an astronomical instrument rather than a timepiece, and legible as such once you know what the rings mean.

Libra is absent from the zodiac ring. Local tradition blames a clockmaker underpaid and taking revenge; the likelier explanation is that the 1428 rebuild simply laid the signs out in a way that left no room for it. The legend has outlived every attempt to correct it.

Falconetto's 1532 arch at the base is a clean piece of Veneto Renaissance classicism grafted onto a medieval tower, and the join is not disguised.