Clock Tower

A topographical cabinet card showing a view of the Clock Tower (Italian: Torre dell'Orologio) on the Piazza San Marco in Venice. Commissioned in 1493, the astronomical clock was installed in the tower in February 1499.

The high archway beneath the clock is the street known as the Merceria, leading to the Rialto, the city's commercial centre.

Photographed by Carlo Ponti of Venice.

Ponti studied photography in Paris in the 1840s. In 1852, he obtained a license to produce and sell photographs in Venice. He ran the first of the big photographic businesses in the city, producing albums with architectural views of great artistic sensitivity. He was also the inventor of camera lenses suitable for panoramic photography.