The Torre dell'Orologio in context : public clocktowers in renaissance Venice and the Venetian territorial state

Abstract

In 1499 the city of Venice unveiled their Torre dell’Orologio to the world stage that was Piazza San Marco. Perhaps due to its intricacy the Torre dell’Orologio has only ever been studied in isolation. Primarily this thesis seeks to place the clock tower back into its historical, social, spatial, and visual context, focusing on its ‘public facing’ aspects, rather than mechanical developments. This is achieved by considering the actors involved in the clock towers construction and maintenance, its possible design influences, the impact the tower had on its immediate built environment, and the way it was depicted and described. Importantly this thesis notes that Venice’s spectacular structure was not the first of its kind. In fact, the majority of cities in the Venetian Terraferma already boasted their own examples of monumental clocks before Venice’s was built. Problematically however, these examples are popularly characterised as ‘lesser copies’ of Venice’s monumental astronomical clock. Because each of these clocks have similarly only been discussed in monographic isolation, the patterns of similarities within this group of clock towers, which by the end of the sixteenth century represented a clear visual coherence, has not before been identified. By reconsidering Venice’s monumental clock tower within the context of a selection of similar case-studies in Padua, Brescia, Vicenza, Udine, Sacile, and other clocks in Venice itself, which were developed throughout the long fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, this thesis also asks why and how this visual coherence was born. In doing so the thesis likewise challenges the centre-periphery model that so often characterises the perception of Venice’s relationship to the Terraferma. Instead, it argues that in relation to public clock towers this apparent relationship was established after the fact, and as a result of Venice’s visibility, and later innovations after the war of the League of Cambrai.