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Step into Piazza dei Signori in Padua and look up at the clock tower between two palaces . Above a wide stone arch , a deep blue dial covered in gold signs tells you much more than the hour . This is an astronomical clock , a machine that copies the movement of the sky . Its dial is divided into twenty - four hours . It also shows the position of the sun , the phases of the moon and the zodiac . At the centre sits the Earth , because the clock follows the old belief that the heavens turn around us . In 1344 , the physician and astronomer Jacopo Dondi built the first clock here for the ruling Carrara family . In 1390 , Milanese troops attacked the palace , and both the tower and its clock were destroyed . Padua then came under Venetian rule , and clockmakers rebuilt the clock on Dondi 's model . It was inaugurated in 1437 , on the feast of Saint Anthony , the city 's best - loved saint . In 1531 the architect Giovanni Maria Falconetto added the grand arch below . Today volunteers open the tower for guided visits , so you can climb inside and watch the old gears at work . Now count the signs on the dial : there are only eleven , because Libra , the scales , is missing . A popular legend says the clockmaker left it out on purpose , angry with a patron who paid him badly . Historians offer a simpler answer . In early Greek astronomy , the stars of Libra belonged to Scorpio , so the scorpion fills two spaces . Before leaving the square , look up one last time . The blue face has measured hours and seasons for almost six centuries , and it still reads the sky above Padua . Only the scales are missing , and they are missing still .
