Places to see in ( Asti - Italy ) Torre Troyana
Places to see in ( Asti - Italy ) Torre Troyana
The Troyana Tower or Clock Tower , is one of the architectural symbols of the city of Asti . Located next to the Palazzo Ducale or the Governor, overlooking Piazza Medici, in the Rione San Secondo , it is included among the structures that make up the mosaic of the Castelli Aperti of Lower Piedmont. In the nineteenth century the tower bell marked the hours and the retreat for the night. It was also the sign of the opening of the schools. In more remote times, it signaled the closure of the shops and the punishments that were imposed on the public square.
It is a tower with a square base of 5,90 meters on each side, with a closed and smooth barrel, ending with three bands bounded by stone frames, on each side of which large mullioned windows open. Finish with a Ghibelline dovetail battlement and above it a metal pinnacle to cover the still working clock .
The foundation of the basal part took place between the end of the twelfth century and the beginnings of the next, according to the types of construction typical of the period; we do not know who the ancient owners were, most likely exponents of the ancient consular patrician increasingly undermined by the new ruling class of the city, which based its wealth on international trade, exchange and loan. It was in the first half of the thirteenth century that the Troya family , rich line of bankers, took over the still incomplete tower: around 1250 it began the construction of the three mullioned windows, and in a period of a little later (between 1260 and 1280 ) the completed with the sumptuous crenellated crowning to protrude.
The Incisa states that in 1420 the Asinari , who had become its owners, gave it to the Municipality of Asti, with the obligation to install the watch. In reality it is certain that in the second half of the fourteenth century the tower and the relevant Troy were incorporated into the new great palace where the dukes of Orleans, new lords of the City, established the seat of the Governors of Asti and its state. In 1422 Filippo Maria Visconti , as regent of the Asti County, transferred the residence of the Governors to the new castle of the citadel, and assigned the use of the palace to the Municipality, in which the headquarters of the Council of Credence and of the administrative offices were immediately transferred. Since then the Troyana tower became a civic tower: the existing clock was installed in the former municipal tower of Piazza San Secondo (then collapsed in 1680 ), and in 1470 to protect its mechanisms from the weather, the mullioned windows were closed and the top covered with the current sloping roof and with the bell-shaped spire. The public use of the tower remained even after the municipal office was relocated; in 1560 Emanuele Filiberto di Savoia, Count of Asti, gave her definitively to the City, which remained uninterrupted owner. In 1905 , the tower underwent its first restoration, with the reopening of the mullioned windows and the consolidation of the walls.
Although the presence of a bell in the tower dates back to the early fifteenth century , the current bell of the sixteenth century , is among the oldest in Piedmont and the oldest among those that still carry out the activity of marking the hours of the day. Only the bell of the church of San Giorgio di Chieri (now however museumized) is older, going back to 1452 - 1455 .
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