Torre Civica

Trevi's Civic Tower rises over Piazza del Comune beside the communal palace. Its exact construction date is not known, but the tower appears in municipal records from the fourteenth century. A local chronicle records that Corrado Trinci had it lowered during his rule and that the commune raised it again in 1429.

Why it matters

The tower's function was civic communication. Its bells summoned assemblies, marked the hours, warned of storms and mourned the dead. Municipal records from 1354 describe a timber-and-masonry platform, called the canestro, at the top of the tower to carry the merlons.

What to notice

The tower stands in the southeast corner of the square. The adjoining communal palace has a seventeenth-century portico; the former Palazzo dei Consoli stands on the south side. The tower's restrained silhouette contrasts with the surrounding civic buildings. A chronicle records that after Corrado Trinci's forces took Trevi around 1420, the tower was lowered; after his rule ended, the commune raised it again in 1429. The source associates the change with the bells' diminished reach.

Context and history

The tower was a communal construction project, with a late-thirteenth-century date considered probable but not fixed by surviving records. A chronicle records contributions of labour from the city's priorates and provision of building materials by the commune. By 1461, the structure had deteriorated; the bells were removed and the clock transferred to the bell tower of Sant'Emiliano. The tower was raised again in 1462 and restored in 1464 after falling masonry killed a notary from Perugia. Later earthquakes and wars brought further repairs. The detailed account is based largely on transcriptions of Tommaso Valenti's nineteenth-century study, republished by the Pro Trevi association.