Florence, start of the restoration of the clock in the Arnolfo Tower of Palazzo Vecchio

Restorations are starting in Florence on the clock of the Arnolfo Tower in Palazzo Vecchio, one of the largest in the world (we are talking about two meters long and wide by two and a half meters high).
The restoration is part of the FLIC Florence I Care project, which allows private individuals to finance renovations of the city’s main monuments.

The work will cost €125,000 financed by the watchmaking company Giuliano Mazzuoli S.r.l. with the collaboration of Andrea Palmieri, a master watchmaker known and accredited in the field of antique clock restoration, and Ugo Pancani, an internationally renowned technician in the field of watch movements and former professor of micromechanics and watchmaking at the Leonardo da Vinci High School in Florence.

It was built by the Florentine Nicolò Bernardo in 1353, in a workshop on a street near the cathedral that has since been called Via dell’Oriuolo, while in 1500 Lorenzo della Volpaia, one of the best scientific instrument makers of the Renaissance, famous for building the planet clock for the Medici, was given the task of repairing the clock.

In 1665 Grand Duke Ferdinand II commissioned the court clockmaker J.P.Treffler to make a new clock, which is then the one we see today, which was made in early 1667 in Augsburg by Georg Lederle on the instructions of Treffler himself, who transported it on four ox-drawn wagons in the summer of that year to Florence. The last resaturation was in 1990.
The current restoration will consist of cleaning and oiling the mechanical parts to ensure their maintenance and proper functioning. In addition, the room adjoining the clock will be made accessible to citizens and visitors, restoring the full usability of the original rooms.

Thus, it will be possible to have a close look at the ancient gears that are still working today: in fact, inside are located the various control devices of the bells and the clock with a digitally operated servomechanism that drives the hand placed on the façade, while through a wooden staircase one can climb up to the cell that houses the actual historical mechanism.

Florence, start of the restoration of the clock in the Arnolfo Tower of Palazzo Vecchio

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