In 1940 the Trebino workshop in Uscio turned out its first electrically wound tower clock: the dial measured 21 metres around and ended up on top of the Piacentini tower, the skyscraper on piazza Dante in Genoa. That workshop is now a company museum, opened in 2004 inside the family's old plant and named after Roberto Trebino, the founder's grandson and namesake, kidnapped and killed in 1985 at the age of twenty.
What to see
Two rooms hold mechanisms spanning four centuries. The oldest pieces date from the seventeenth century; about thirty are rare hand-built examples, Italian and northern European alike. The most striking are the wrought-iron frames known as “castle” movements, or “a pollaio”, hen-house, for the squared cage that carries wheels and weights: the whole movement is on show, with no case or glass in the way.
The route runs on to serial production, electrically wound clocks and today's radio-synchronised models. It is the story of a firm that has worked this trade since 1824: before it, Uscio had the blacksmith Davide Bisso in 1757 and the Terrile family. Since 1958 the company has supplied Vatican City, the Quirinal Palace and the astronomical observatory at Tolentino, in the Marche, along with clients across half the world. Beside the clocks sits the other house speciality: the electrification of bells.
Visiting
Uscio lies in the hinterland behind Genoa, at the centre of what people here call the Valle del Tempo, the valley of time: the name comes from its concentration of tower-clock builders and from the Picasso bell foundries. The museum is visited by appointment, so the phone call comes before the drive: this is not a place with a ticket desk and set opening hours, but a company that opens its rooms to those who ask.
Our editors' tip
Ask to hear a mechanism running: understanding how an iron cage from the seventeenth century keeps the hour is worth more than any label. And take your time over the dials at close range, because here you can read numerals and hands that from a square, tens of metres below, you can only guess at.