Thanks to “Detourism: La newsletter di Venezia”, the official Town of Venice Tourism Office Newsletter, today we are going to discover everything about the Moors’ Tower of St. Mark’s Square in Venice. Do not miss on the procession of the statues representing the Three Kings taking place tomorrow above the tower clock, on occasion of the Feast of Epiphany! Enjoy your reading!
The Moors’ Tower, one of the landmarks of Saint Mark’s Square, known for its gold and blue enamel clock
The Clock Tower, or Torre dei Mori (Moors’ Tower), is one of the most original Venetian early Reinassance buildings. Its large astronomical clock has been marking the passage of time in Venice for more than five hundred years.
On the rooftop of the tower are two enormous bronze automatons, known as the Moors because of the patina on the metal, made in 1497. The Moors mark the hours by striking the bell that crowns the edifice. The old bearded one, on the right, strikes the bell two minutes early, a symbol of the time that has passed. The young one, on the left, replies two minutes later, marking the time that is yet to come.
The Clock Tower has also a special mechanism which is activated only twice a year, on the Feast of the Epiphany and Ascension Day. On those days, every hour on the hour from the left door on the half circle above the clock emerges a procession of wooden statues representing the Three Kings led by an Angel, proceeding along the mechanized track in front of the Madonna, then reenters the clocktower on the opposite side.
For more information on the Clock Tower, download the museum guide.
Learn more about the Clock Tower’s history
[source: La newsletter di Venezia, N° 01/2021 del 08.01.2021]
[picture: Philip Barrington / Pixabay]
We are proud to publish some selected contents of such newsletter (see previous post: “Detourism for the Up and Down the Bridges“). On our website, in several episodes, we will only present some samples (see all posts in our archive page “Detourism Newsletter“), but the invitation addressed to all the friends of the Up and Down the Bridges is to subscribe to the newsletter directly.
Special thanks to the Councillor for Tourism for having enthusiastically welcomed this new important collaboration between TGS Eurogroup and the Tourism Office of the Town of Venice and for giving us the precious opportunity to publish on the pages of this blog some extracts from this newsletter, both in Italian and in English.
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