Every hour of the day, hordes of tourists look up at the zytglogge dial.
Thomas Kern / Swissinfo
For almost 500 years, a TIC-TAC has resonated without discontinuing in the heart of the old town of Bern. It comes from ZYTGLOGGE, a tower that houses one of the rare astronomical clocks still in working order and entirely mechanical in Europe.
-
Deutsch
of
Zytglogge, the mechanical heart of the city of Bern
lire plus cytglogge, the mechanical heart of the city of Bern
-
Italian
it
Zytglogge, the mechanical heart of the city of Bern
original
Lire Plus Zytglogge, the mechanical heart of the city of Bern
“Listen to the ZYTGLOGGE beats,” says Domenico Bernabei, inviting us to grasp one of the metal bars connected to the gigantic mechanical heart composed of gears, strings and counterweights. At each tick-tac, we perceive the tremor of the bar under our palms.
La ZytgloggeExternal link (or clock tower in French) where Domenico Bernabei leads us is a tower located in the center of the old town of Bern, at the entrance to the Kramgasse, the first street around which the one who was going to become the Swiss “capital” developed.
Plus
Plus
Why does Switzerland have no capital
This content was published on
29 mar. 2025
The city of Berne certainly houses the government, the parliament and a large part of the federal administration. However, it is not officially the capital of Switzerland, but bears the title of “federal city”. What is the reason?
Read more why Switzerland has no capital
This building is also the pride of the city, including the historic center – including Zytglogge – has been listed since 1983 as a UNESCO World HeritageExternal link. And this is probably one of the few buildings on the list on which we can urinate. Indeed, the north wall has been equipped with a urinal in service for over 100 years.
But this is certainly not the most important curiosity linked to ZyTGLOGGE. Rather, it is its clocks, one of which is astronomical.
However, people who pass by chance and who know neither his history nor its functioning might not understand how extraordinary the structure they observe. Even in the eyes of many tourists who hurry there as the hour approaches, we can sometimes read the disappointment of those who, from the corner of the eye, see the movements of the characters only at the last moment.
All this is activated by a unique mechanism that can be admired solely by appointment. Domenico Bernabei is not only one of the city guides that accompanies tourists inside the tower, it is also one of the four people responsible for raising this complex mechanism.
“I don’t know how many people around the world are working on this job. It is an honor that Berne gives to our team, “said Domenico Bernabei, who likes to emphasize that he is Bernese pure sugar, while joking about his Italian surname which contains the name of the city where he was born.
Each day, in turn, the team members turn the crank that raises the weights that transmit the energy necessary for mechanics. The reassembly must be carried out as much as possible every 27 hours. Unlike other similar engineering works still active, the Bern Zytglogge still works exactly as when inauguration in 1530.
No modern electric gadgets to go up the ZyTGLOGGE, but only the strength of the arms and the dedication of a team of five people including Domenico Bernabei is a part.
Thomas Kern / Swissinfo
The Nuremberg specialist
At the beginning of the 16the A century, Bern wanted to display its richness and highlight its rupture with the Catholic Church which, until the Protestant Reformation, had the quasi-monopoly on the clocks that punctuated the daily life of the population, explains our guide. The city therefore decided to command the construction of a new astronomical clock to a German (a curiosity that many Bernese hardly appreciate).
Plus
Plus
Culture on swissinfo.ch
Interviews, debates and developments: Swiss cultural creation and its positions in your mailbox.
Read more the culture on swissinfo.ch
At the time, the cream of the cream of watch engineers was indeed in Nuremberg. This is where Kaspar Brunner came from. At the heart of the tower, for three years, he drew, designed, forged gears, put up and dismantled his masterpiece several times. With meticulousness, it noted the shape of each component, so that it can be easily forged and replaced in the event of a breakdown.
The result is impressive. This unique and complex mechanical heart, born from the spirit of Kaspar Brunner, moves:
- The large clock at the top of the tower
- The astrolabe, on which the time, the moon phases, the date of the week, are indicated, the sign of the zodiac and the time of sunrise and sunset
- The arms of the buffoon, which sits two bells
- The arms and mouth of Cronos, the god of time turning the hourglass that he holds in one hand and agitates with each blow the scepter he holds from the other
- The figure of the rooster, which lifts the wings and pushes its cry thanks to a bellows which activates a trumpet
- The head of the golden lion to the left of Cronos
- The procession of bears in armor, which turns as many times as there are hours to indicate (it performs for example eleven complete rotations at 11:00 am).
In addition to all this, every quarter of an hour, the gears ring the large bell and move the golden statue of Hans von Tann (generic name in German to designate the Jacquemart) at the top of the tower. However, this is a more recent addition, dating from the 18th centurye century.
The evolution of the Zytglogge tower
La Zytgloves rowing au XIIIe century. It was a stocky tower which served as a west access door to the city, but which already had an astronomical clock, more rudimentary than that which we can see today. Returning on site 100 years later, we would have found the building in the center of the city, which had meanwhile extended to the west. In 1300, this tower served as a prison for women, more specifically the place where their sentences were guilty of having had sex with members of the clergy. The prison, located in the upper part of the tower, in the east, had no walls and the unfortunate were left at the mercy of the elements and the prying eyes of the population.
After the big fire which ravaged Bern in 1405, it was thought that it would be wise to transform the building into a watchtower, in order to identify the beginnings of fire.
It was in 1530 that the mechanism designed by Kaspar Brunner, which operated clocks and carillon figurines, was put into service. However, it will be necessary to wait for the XVIIIe A century to see the ZYTGLOGGE in its current form, with its arrow whose summit peaks at almost 25 meters.
As one can imagine, all this is quite noisy. But even in a country where silence is gold (to the point that it is strictly prohibited to use the washing machine or vacuum cleaner on Sunday in many buildings), the noise of Zytglogge is a din to which the inhabitants of the surroundings are attached.
“It is very rare, but it sometimes happens that one of us forgets to have exchanged its usual turn with someone who is on vacation, and the zytglogge stops,” says Domenico Bernabei. But what is great is that the inhabitants of the neighborhood immediately call us to ask us what happened. It is clear that, just like the AAR, it is a symbol of the city. And this is something that the Bernese loves a lot. ”
And now let us be transported for one minute by the TIC-TAC from the Mechanical Heart of Bern:
Plus
See the discussion
Text reread and verified by Daniele Mariani, translated from Italian using Deeppl/Op
