Bell tower of the Mother Church of Savoca
Eugenio Nicola Scarcella - CC1.0
The bell tower of the Mother Church of Savoca houses a particular clock of a rare type.
The mighty bell tower of the Church of Santa Maria in Cielo Assunta in fact houses a clock with a very particular mechanism based on the movement of a single sphere. The clock marks the hours according to an ancient measurement of time, the Hora italica. The Italian hours are calculated by dividing the day into twenty-four equal parts, placing the origin at the moment of sunset; that is, Italian time indicated the number of hours that had passed since the previous sunset.
Even today, traces of this ancient measurement remain in dialect expressions: wearing the hat on the twenty-three, means wearing the hat tilted with reference to the inclination of the sun's rays one hour before sunset, 11 pm in Italian time.
