The Torrazzo is the

bell tower A bell tower is a tower that contains one or more bells, or that is designed to hold bells even if it has none. Such a tower commonly serves as part of a Christian church, and will contain church bells, but there are also many secular bell tow ...

of the Cathedral of Cremona,

Lombardy (man), (woman) lmo, lumbard, links=no (man), (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , ...

, in northern

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

. The Torrazzo measures ,Official Document of the Research conducted by the Politecnico di Milano
and it is known as the third tallest brickwork bell tower in the world, the first being the tower of St. Martin's Church in Landshut,

Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total l ...

, and the second at the Church of Our Lady in Bruges,

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to ...

. However, the Torrazzo (completed in 1309) is older than the Landshut tower (completed in 1500) and the Bruges tower (completed in 1465), and it is the oldest brick structure taller than 100 m that is still standing. According to popular tradition, construction on the tower began in 754. In reality, it was built in four phases: a first dating back to the 1230s, up to the third dripstone, a second, between 1250 and 1267, up to the dripstone under the quadriphore, a third around 1284, and the completion of the marble

spire A spire is a tall, slender, pointed structure on top of a roof of a building or tower, especially at the summit of church steeples. A spire may have a square, circular, or polygonal plan, with a roughly conical or pyramidal shape. Spires a ...

in 1309. Its height is announced by a plaque embedded in the wall at the base of the Torrazzo itself, stating 250 arms and 2 ounces, which in the ancient measuring system of the Lombard towns translates to approximately 111 metres. Archaeological excavations made in the 1980s have discovered the presence of underlying structures which are supposed to be the remains of a more ancient churchyard (or a cemetery associated to it), or even previous Roman buildings.

The Astronomical Clock

Cremona-Orologio astronomico sul Torrazzo perspec

At the fourth storey of the Torrazzo resides the largest

astronomical clock An astronomical clock, horologium, or orloj is a clock with special mechanisms and dials to display astronomical information, such as the relative positions of the Sun, Moon, zodiacal constellations, and sometimes major planets. Definition ...

in the world. The clock dial has a diameter of . The mechanism was built by Francesco and Giovan Battista Divizioli (father and son) between 1583 and 1588. The exterior, originally painted by Paolo Scazzola in 1483 but later repainted many times, including by Giovanni Battista Dordoni, represents the sky with zodiac constellations and the Sun and Moon moving through them. The clock hands are five (actually, they are four because one of them is a double), and they have the main function of representing a lot of astronomical phenomena, such as

Lunar phase Concerning the lunar month of ~29.53 days as viewed from Earth, the lunar phase or Moon phase is the shape of the Moon's directly sunlit portion, which can be expressed quantitatively using areas or angles, or described qualitatively using the t ...

solstice A solstice is an event that occurs when the Sun appears to reach its most northerly or southerly excursion relative to the celestial equator on the celestial sphere. Two solstices occur annually, around June 21 and December 21. In many count ...

equinox A solar equinox is a moment in time when the Sun crosses the Earth's equator, which is to say, appears directly above the equator, rather than north or south of the equator. On the day of the equinox, the Sun appears to rise "due east" and se ...

es and

eclipsis Irish, like all modern Celtic languages, is characterized by its initial consonant mutations. These mutations affect the initial consonant of a word under specific morphological and syntactic conditions. The mutations are an important tool ...

The Bells

The Torrazzo is formed by seven bells, all tuned in the scale of

A major A major (or the key of A) is a major scale based on A, with the pitches A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. Its key signature has three sharps. Its relative minor is F-sharp minor and its parallel minor is A minor. The key of A major is the only k ...

. There is also another bell, called the "Ringing Bell", used to strike the hour.

References

Sources

* * * *

External links

Cremona
{{DEFAULTSORT:Torrazzo Of Cremona Buildings and structures completed in 1309 Towers completed in the 14th century Buildings and structures in Cremona Bell towers in Italy Clock towers in Italy Astronomical clocks in Italy