History
Until the end of the 18th century, Rijeka was surrounded by ramparts, within which all public, cultural and economic city life took place. Rijeka was entered from under the "Sea Gate" and the "Upper Gate", which were reached via a wooden bridge over a moat filled with water. In the 17th century, the tower was raised and a clock was placed on it, and the name Satni toranj, Torre d` orologio, became common. The citizens of Rijeka scheduled meetings "sotto la torre" or "pod uriloj". The tower was also decorated with inscriptions, coats of arms and busts of Habsburg rulers. Thus, above the entrance gate is the Habsburg double-headed eagle and an inscription from 1695. On the architrave are inscriptions, one of which evokes the memory of Leopold I. On 6 June 1659, he granted Rijeka a coat of arms of a double-headed eagle, with both heads, heraldically unusually facing the same direction, standing on a vessel from which water flows. Below the coat of arms is the motto INDEFICIENTER (meaning inexhaustible). This coat of arms is also on the tower. The second inscription evokes the memory of the arrival of Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor. in Rijeka in 1728.
When a catastrophic earthquake struck Rijeka in 1750, Maria Theresa allocated funds for the city's reconstruction, but she also approved a general urban plan for the construction of a new city (civitas nova), with the Old Town remaining unchanged. A modern city district was built in front of the city on the filled terrain. As part of this reconstruction, the city tower was given a monumental portal, on the crown of which the Rijeka sculptor Antonio Michelazzi placed relief busts of emperors. In 1784, the city council purchased clocks for all four sides from "the best Ljubljana clockmaker". The clocks functioned until 1873, when they were replaced by a clock mechanism that showed the time in Vienna at the international exhibition. This clock is still in operation today. According to the design of the architect Antun Gnambo, the tower was renovated around 1801, and a drum and a dome were added.
The City Tower is one of the symbols of the city of Rijeka. In 1890, architect Filibert Bazarig gave it a new historicist look and covered it with its current dome. The City Tower was renovated and conserved as a significant cultural monument in 1983.
The sculpture of the Rijeka double-headed eagle was once located on the top of the tower's dome. After World War I, Italian soldiers cut off one of its heads, so that it resembled less the Austrian eagle and more the Roman eagle. The Yugoslav communist authorities completely removed it after World War II. A replica of the sculpture of the Rijeka double-headed eagle was placed again on the top of the dome of the City Tower on 19 April 2017. The author of the sculpture is academic sculptor Hrvoje Uremović, who shaped it according to the guidelines of the Conservation Department in Rijeka and existing archival documentation. The sculpture is as close as possible to a replica of the historical sculpture from 1906. It was made in the ALU d.o.o. Art Foundry in Zagreb. The sculpture is made of aluminum and weighs about 270 kilograms. The height of the sculpture is 255 centimeters, and its wingspan is 300 centimeters. The sculpture is located at a height of about 30 meters. [1]
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