The St. Mark's Clock, Venice

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In these pagese we discuss the history and the recent restoration of St. Mark's Tower Clock, in Venice.
Our articles were first published on the Horological Journal.

The last clock "temperatore" (custodian), Alberto Peratoner, who lived in the Tower, wrote a critique illustrating the errors made during the repair work. The piece can be considered public domain and freely distributed but not altered in any way, to let people know how thing have gone. He also made a website on the Clock: L'Orologio della Torre di San Marco in Venezia.

The Maison Piaget kindly sent us some informative material, including a Technical Brief of the restoration work, which could be viewed on their web site www.venezia-torre.com. The site has been definitively closed and the domain name is now available for registration.

Giuseppe Brusa (historian), one of the authors of the restoration job, together with Alberto Gorla (clockmaker specialized in tower mechanisms), after many months, replied to our criticism on the Venetian Museums website, further increasing our doubts on the correctness of the restoration.

The final goal is to preserve the integrity of this 500 years old clock without undue modifications.

The Clock Tower
  1. THE ST. MARK'S CLOCK
    Our article on the history of the clock (first published on the Horological Journal).
  2. A CONTROVERSIAL RESTORATION
    Our article on the restoration of the clock (first published on the Horological Journal).
  3. MR. BRUSA'S ANSWER
    As it appeared on Venetian Museums website and our reply.
  4. ABERTO GORLA REPLIES BY AN ATTORNEY
    Is this the technical answer everybody was waiting for?
  5. REPORT ON THE MISTAKES MADE DURING THE RESTORATION OF THE TOWER CLOCK IN ST. MARK'S SQUARE
    By Alberto Peratoner
  6. OUR REPLY TO THE ARTICLE APPEARED ON THE ITALIAN MAGAZINE "OROLOGI"
  7. THE LAST WORD?
    Paolo Galluzzi, director of the Institute and Museum of History of Science - Florence, exposes his “thoughts” on the restoration.

The Clock Tower