Orologi storici del Vecchio Incasato

Grottammare's historic timepieces connect the old hilltop quarter with the lower town. A sundial, mechanical clock movements and public dials preserve different ways of measuring and displaying civic time.

Why it matters

The clocks bring a history of technology into the town's architectural fabric. They also recall the maintenance and adjustment required before electronic timekeeping became ordinary.

What to notice

The sundial at Piazza Peretti uses the Italian-hour system, in which the day was counted from sunset. Pietro Mei's mechanical movement of 1844 is associated with the Teatro dell'Arancio. Another mechanism, by Antonio Galli, belongs to San Pio V in the lower town. Palazzo Citeroni preserves a further public-clock setting with a 1922 movement by Edoardo Marconi.

Context and history

These timepieces belong to different buildings and periods, rather than to a single installation. They trace the relationship between solar time, mechanical regulation and public clock faces across the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Modern conservation included restoration of the sundial in 2018 and the presentation of Mei's restored movement as a museum object in 2022.