Aosta · Italy
Sant'Orso Bell Tower
This bell tower is older than the church beside it, and it shows: squat, severe, with windows that widen as they rise. It began not as a bell tower but as a tower, in an age when the difference between a religious building and a defensive one was thin. The bells arrived later. For centuries this tower set the day for an entire quarter: the hour to rise, the hour to lay down work, the alarm when danger arrived. Before clocks, time was heard. It was not looked at.
Go deeper
How old is it?
The core is Romanesque, broadly eleventh to twelfth century, with later reworking in the upper part.
Was it a defensive tower?
It had the makings of one: thick walls, narrow openings low down. In the Middle Ages a bell tower also served as a lookout and a refuge for the quarter.
Can you go up?
Not usually. The tower is looked at from outside, but the Sant’Orso complex next to it is open.
Where it is
More stories in Aosta
- Adret and envers
- When the railway arrived
- Arch of Augustus
- Regional Archaeological Museum
- The villages the city swallowed
- The Battle of the Queens
- Aosta Cathedral
- Church of Santo Stefano