Climbing the Torre dei Lamberti or taking the lift, and what the bells are called

The tallest lookout in the old town

The Torre dei Lamberti rises eighty-four meters from the block that separates Piazza delle Erbe from Piazza dei Signori, the vertical marker visible over the rooftops from almost anywhere inside the river bend. It is worth the climb for two reasons: the view over the whole medieval center, and the tower itself, a structure that records eight centuries of civic life in its bands of stone, its bells and its clock.

The tower belongs to the Comune di Verona and has been open to the public for its view since 1972. It sits at the center of the most compact sightseeing cluster in the city, so climbing it can be paired easily with a walk through Piazza delle Erbe and Piazza dei Signori on the same visit.

Stairs or lift: what to expect

Inside the tower, visitors choose between the internal stairs and a glass-walled lift that shows the structure as it rises. The tourist board counts three hundred sixty-eight steps; the tower's own site gives a lower figure, so treat the number as several hundred either way rather than an exact count. Neither route is technically difficult, but the stairs involve sustained climbing with no shortcut partway up.

The lift is the obvious choice for anyone who finds stairs tiring, and it has the advantage of framing the tower's interior as you rise past its different building phases. Anyone with limited mobility should ask at the entrance exactly how far the lift goes before paying, since the exact arrangement at the top can vary and is best confirmed on the spot rather than assumed in advance.

Allow between half an hour and an hour for the whole visit, depending on whether you take the lift or the stairs and how long you linger at the top. The tower keeps a seasonal schedule and closes on a handful of holidays, so check the official site for the day you plan to go rather than relying on any guidebook figure.

Eight centuries in stone

Construction began in 1172. Tradition credits the powerful Lamberti family, who gave the tower its name, though the city's tourist board notes that much about its origins is undocumented. The first tower was Romanesque, built in alternating courses of tufa and fired brick, and that striped pattern is still visible on the lower shaft today.

In May 1403 lightning struck the top of the tower and wrecked its upper part. Rebuilding started in 1448 and ran until about 1464, raising the tower to its present height and crowning it with an octagonal bell chamber in white marble and brick, opened by tall Gothic windows. The seam between the medieval shaft and the fifteenth-century top is easy to read from the piazza below: plain striped masonry gives way abruptly to a paler, more decorated octagon.

The bells and the clock

Two bells were hung in the tower in 1295, and both are still there. The smaller, the Marangona, takes its name from marangon, Veronese dialect for carpenter: it marked the working hours of the day and sounded the alarm for fires. The larger, the Rengo, is named after the arengo, the medieval assembly, and it summoned the city councils and called citizens to arms.

The Rengo was rung during the Veronese Easter uprising of 1797 against the French, one of the few moments its purpose is specifically recorded. A clock came later: English Wikipedia dates it to 1779, while the tower's own site credits Count Giovanni Sagramoso and gives 1795. The tourist board adds that it was installed after the clock on the nearby Torre del Gardello stopped working, which would explain the timing either way.

From the terrace the bells hang close to the viewing level, so their size is easy to judge in person, something photographs from the ground never quite convey.

What you pass on the way up

The entrance is not on either square. It lies inside the Cortile Mercato Vecchio, the courtyard of the Palazzo della Ragione, the medieval palace that shares the block with the tower. The courtyard's main building was completed in 1194 and was heavily restored in the late nineteenth century by the architect Camillo Boito, so it is worth a look before heading in.

Along one side runs the Scala della Ragione, an open stone staircase built in 1447. It was once roofed over; the covering was removed during restoration in the 1890s, which is why it now reads as a sculptural flight of steps climbing into the light. The palazzo's upper floors house the Galleria d'Arte Moderna Achille Forti, opened in 2014, a possible stop before or after the tower itself.

The view from the top

The terrace gives a full circle over the historic center. Directly below lie the market stalls of Piazza delle Erbe and the quieter rectangle of Piazza dei Signori. Beyond the roofs, the oval of the Arena stands out to the south, and the Adige curls around the old town in its familiar loop.

Across the river to the north-east, look for the stone arches of Ponte Pietra, the terraces of the Roman theater cut into the slope, and Castel San Pietro on the hill above it. On a clear day the mountains to the north close the horizon entirely.

Note Clear weather matters more than anything else for this view. On a hazy day the hills disappear and the far landmarks flatten out, so it is worth keeping the climb flexible within your stay rather than fixing it to a single time slot.

Nearby, without much walking

The Scaliger Tombs are a couple of minutes' walk beyond Piazza dei Signori, the baroque front of Palazzo Maffei closes the far end of Piazza delle Erbe, and the courtyard of Juliet's House is a short walk south-east. All of this makes the tower a natural anchor for a morning or afternoon spent entirely on foot in the old center.

For getting to this part of town in the first place, and for working out how the rest of the sights connect, see the general notes on getting around the old center.