Torre dei Lamberti Historical Timeline

Eighty-four metres of tower begun in the twelfth century and finished in the fifteenth, which is why it changes material and manner halfway up and reads as two buildings stacked. The join is visible from the square below.

Chronology

1. 1172 Construction begins, as a private statement of standing by the Lamberti family. The lower shaft is their work: alternating courses of brick and pale tufa, heavy and nearly windowless, built for stability rather than display.
2. 1403 Lightning strikes in May and damages the top. The tower stands truncated for decades — the reason it was finished by different people, in a different century, to a different taste.
3. 1448–1464 A sixteen-year campaign raises the tower to its present height, adding marble and finer brickwork. Everything above roughly the halfway line, including the bell stage, belongs to this second effort.
4. 1779 The clock is installed. It is the most recent thing on the tower and the feature most visitors notice first.

What the tower was for

Its two bells gave the city an audible timetable: the Rengo summoned the civic councils and raised the alarm, the Marangona marked the working day and warned of fire. A medieval city ran on sound, and this was the instrument.

A tower of this height is essentially a hollow masonry tube, its stability coming from wall thickness at the base rather than from any frame. The walls narrow as they rise, which is why the internal stair tightens toward the top and the floor at the belfry is small.

• Official website
• Wikipedia