The Torre del Mangia is a

tower A tower is a tall Nonbuilding structure, structure, taller than it is wide, often by a significant factor. Towers are distinguished from guyed mast, masts by their lack of guy-wires and are therefore, along with tall buildings, self-supporting ...

Siena Siena ( , ; traditionally spelled Sienna in English; ) is a city in Tuscany, in central Italy, and the capital of the province of Siena. It is the twelfth most populated city in the region by number of inhabitants, with a population of 52,991 ...

, in the

Tuscany Tuscany ( ; ) is a Regions of Italy, region in central Italy with an area of about and a population of 3,660,834 inhabitants as of 2025. The capital city is Florence. Tuscany is known for its landscapes, history, artistic legacy, and its in ...

region of

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

. Built in 1338–1348, it is located in the

Piazza del Campo Piazza del Campo is the main piazza, public space of the historic center of Siena, a city in Tuscany, Italy, Its name comes from the Italian language, Italian word ''campanilismo,'' which translates to "local pride" and ''campanile'' "bell tower." ...

, Siena's main

square In geometry, a square is a regular polygon, regular quadrilateral. It has four straight sides of equal length and four equal angles. Squares are special cases of rectangles, which have four equal angles, and of rhombuses, which have four equal si ...

, next to the

Palazzo Pubblico The Palazzo Pubblico (town hall) is a historic palace in Siena, Tuscany, in central Italy. Located on the Piazza del Campo, it is one of the principal architectural landmarks of the city's historic center. Construction began in 1297 to serve ...

(Town Hall). When built it was one of the tallest

secular Secularity, also the secular or secularness (from Latin , or or ), is the state of being unrelated or neutral in regards to religion. The origins of secularity can be traced to the Bible itself. The concept was fleshed out through Christian hi ...

towers in

medieval Italy The history of Italy in the Middle Ages can be roughly defined as the time between the collapse of the Western Roman Empire and the Italian Renaissance. Late antiquity in Italy lingered on into the 7th century under the Ostrogothic Kingdom and ...

. At 102 m it is now Italy's second tallest after

Cremona Cathedral Cremona Cathedral (, ''Cattedrale di Santa Maria Assunta''), dedicated to the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, is a Catholic cathedral in Cremona, Lombardy, northern Italy. It is the seat of the Bishop of Cremona. Its bell tower is the famou ...

Torrazzo Torrazzo is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Biella in the Italy, Italian region Piedmont, located about northeast of Turin and about southwest of Biella. Torrazzo borders the following municipalities: Bollengo, Burolo, Chiaveran ...

(), the Asinelli tower in

Bologna Bologna ( , , ; ; ) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in northern Italy. It is the List of cities in Italy, seventh most populous city in Italy, with about 400,000 inhabitants and 150 different nationalities. Its M ...

at 97 m being third.

History

The tower was built to be exactly the same height as

Siena Cathedral Siena Cathedral () is a medieval church in Siena, Italy, dedicated from its earliest days as a Roman Catholic Marian church, and now dedicated to the Assumption of Mary. Since the early 13th-century the Siena Cathedral has been an important pa ...

as a sign that the church and the state had equal power. The name refers to its first bellringer, Giovanni di Balduccio, nicknamed ''Mangiaguadagni'' (‘Profit eater’) either for his spendthrift tendency, idleness or gluttony.

Sections

The tower has visually distinct levels, from the bottom: # a marble

loggia In architecture, a loggia ( , usually , ) is a covered exterior Long gallery, gallery or corridor, often on an upper level, sometimes on the ground level of a building. The corridor is open to the elements because its outer wall is only parti ...

at the base # a long red brick shaft # a stone section that flares out slightly # a short pale-gray upper loggia # a marble (uppermost) structure. The loggia where the tower meets the Piazza del Campo, known as the ''Cappella di Piazza'', was added in 1352 to fulfil a vow to the

Holy Virgin Mary was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Joseph and the mother of Jesus. She is an important figure of Christianity, venerated under various titles such as virgin or queen, many of them mentioned in the Litany of Loret ...

by Sienese survivors of the

Black Death The Black Death was a bubonic plague pandemic that occurred in Europe from 1346 to 1353. It was one of the list of epidemics, most fatal pandemics in human history; as many as people perished, perhaps 50% of Europe's 14th century population. ...

. The corner pilasters attained their current form in 1378, the sculptures decorating them being executed in 1378–1382 by Mariano d'Angelo Romanelli e Bartolomeo di Tommé. The simple wooden ceiling once covering the loggia was replaced by the current Renaissance marble vault in 1461–1468 by Antonio Federighi, also responsible for the bizarre decorations of the coronation. In 1537–1539

Il Sodoma Il Sodoma (1477 – 14 February 1549) was the name given to the Italy, Italian Renaissance Painting, painter Giovanni Antonio Bazzi. Il Sodoma painted in a manner that superimposed the High Renaissance style of early 16th-century Rome onto the tr ...

painted a

fresco Fresco ( or frescoes) is a technique of mural painting executed upon freshly laid ("wet") lime plaster. Water is used as the vehicle for the dry-powder pigment to merge with the plaster, and with the setting of the plaster, the painting become ...

above the altar, now housed in the town museum in the Palazzo Pubblico. The upper-middle part in stone was built by Agostino di Giovanni to the design of one ''Mastro Lippo pittore'', probably identifiable with Lippo Memmi. It consists of a

parapet A parapet is a barrier that is an upward extension of a wall at the edge of a roof, terrace, balcony, walkway or other structure. The word comes ultimately from the Italian ''parapetto'' (''parare'' 'to cover/defend' and ''petto'' 'chest/brea ...

resting on

corbel In architecture, a corbel is a structural piece of stone, wood or metal keyed into and projecting from a wall to carry a wikt:superincumbent, bearing weight, a type of bracket (architecture), bracket. A corbel is a solid piece of material in t ...

s. The pronounced petal-like arches between the corbels have led writers to describe the structure as a tulip or lily. The clock on the lower part of the shaft was added in 1360. There are three bells, the largest one is called the ''"Sunto"'' - an abbreviation of assunto, a reference to the assumption of the Virgin. The bell plays a notable role in the celebrations of the

Palio Palio is the name given in Italy to an annual athletic contest, very often of a historical character, pitting the neighbourhoods of a town or the hamlets of a ''comune'' against each other. Typically, they are fought in costume and commemorate so ...

. The walls of the tower are approximately thick on each side.

Towers inspired by the Torre del Mangia

A number of towers have been inspired by the Torre del Mangia. These include: * The

Joseph Chamberlain Memorial Clock Tower The Joseph Chamberlain Memorial Clock Tower, or colloquially Old Joe, is a clock tower and campanile located in Chancellor's court at the University of Birmingham, in the suburb of Edgbaston. It is the tallest free-standing clock tower in the wo ...

(nicknamed Old Joe) at the

University of Birmingham The University of Birmingham (informally Birmingham University) is a Public university, public research university in Birmingham, England. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Queen's College, Birmingham (founded in 1825 as ...

, UK, was inspired by the Torre del Mangia, and couples a similar design with

Victorian Victorian or Victorians may refer to: 19th century * Victorian era, British history during Queen Victoria's 19th-century reign ** Victorian architecture ** Victorian house ** Victorian decorative arts ** Victorian fashion ** Victorian literatur ...

redbrick A redbrick university (or red-brick university) normally refers to one of the nine civic universities originally founded as university colleges in the major industrial cities of England in the second half of the 19th century. However, wi ...

styles. * A strongly influenced clock tower built for the

Waterbury Union Station The Waterbury Union Station building is located on Meadow Street in the city of Waterbury, Connecticut, Waterbury, Connecticut, United States. It is a brick building dating to the first decade of the 20th century. Its tall clock tower, built by ...

Waterbury, Connecticut Waterbury is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. Waterbury had a population of 114,403 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 Census. The city is southwest of Hartford, Connecticut, Hartford and northeast of New York City. Waterbury i ...

. Designed by

McKim, Mead & White McKim, Mead & White was an American architectural firm based in New York City. The firm came to define architectural practice, urbanism, and the ideals of the American Renaissance in ''fin de siècle'' New York. The firm's founding partners, Cha ...

and completed in 1909, it today houses the headquarters of the region's daily newspaper. * The all-

granite Granite ( ) is a coarse-grained (phanerite, phaneritic) intrusive rock, intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly coo ...

Pilgrim Monument at

Provincetown, Massachusetts Provincetown () is a New England town located at the extreme tip of Cape Cod in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, in the United States. A small coastal resort town with a year-round population of 3,664 as of the 2020 United States census, Provi ...

is a scaled-down near replica of the Torre del Mangia, but for its materials and height. Designed by Willard T. Sears, it was built from 1907 to 1910 to commemorate the 21 November 1620 landing of the Mayflower Pilgrims there. The monument is the tallest all-granite structure in the United States. * The Dock Tower in Grimsby, North East Lincolnshire, UK. Built in 1852 and standing tall, the vertical

reservoir A reservoir (; ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam, usually built to water storage, store fresh water, often doubling for hydroelectric power generation. Reservoirs are created by controlling a watercourse that drains an existing body of wa ...

provided hydraulic power to open the lock gates of the Royal Dock. Although obsolete from 1892 onward, it remains a proud monument to the town and its rich fishing history. * The tower at the Pine Street Inn at the South End of

Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

, Massachusetts, formerly a fire station and fire watch tower, is also modelled on the Torre del Mangia. Boston's tower, which is tall, designed and built in 1892 by Edmund March Wheelwright, is made of brick like the Italian original and was originally designed as part of the central fire station and used as a fire lookout.Pine Street Inn (Boston)
- Wikimapia * The main building of the Spanish business & law school,

ICADE ICADE is the brand name by which two schools of the Comillas Pontifical University, located in Madrid (Spain), are known. It stands for '' Instituto Católico de Administración y Dirección de Empresas'' (''Catholic Institute of Business Adminis ...

, in

Madrid Madrid ( ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in Spain, most populous municipality of Spain. It has almost 3.5 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It i ...

, is topped with a clock tower modelled on the Torre de Mangia.

Footnotes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Torre Del Mangia Buildings and structures completed in 1348 Towers completed in the 14th century Mangia Buildings and structures in Siena Tourist attractions in Tuscany Clocks in Italy 1348 establishments in Europe 14th-century establishments in Italy

History

Sections

Towers inspired by the Torre del Mangia

See also

Footnotes

References