Construction of the Tower and First Mention
3rd Floor / No. 10
10th Century / Original City Tower (First Mention)
Oral tradition holds that the original city tower was built in the 10th century, during the time of the Hungarian invasions. Frequent attacks by the Hungarians so severely threatened the safety of the city and the wider Ptuj area that the city likely constructed an observation tower first. In this way, an observer could quickly detect incoming danger and warn the inhabitants. Skeletal graves dating to the 11th century indicate that a cemetery was already present next to the church at that time.
1376 / Statute (First Written Mention)
The City Tower is first mentioned in writing in the Ptuj Statute of 1376. Ptuj had become an important trading center; the central administrative, judicial, and commercial center of the city was the market or market street, today’s Slovenski trg. Merchants with various goods from numerous European cities came here for fairs. The statute recorded that during the market peace, the sign of which was an arm with a sword, bakers, fodder merchants, and hucksters had to pay the city a tax for the market or stall spaces they occupied under the tower during the fair.
1513 / Statute
The Ptuj Statute of 1513 states that the Ptuj City Tower was part of the public buildings intended for the judiciary and security in the city. Upon taking office and inauguration of the new city authority, every guardian of the city tower had to take a solemn oath, as written in Article 17.
» I, N., swear that I will faithfully care for the tower in the city of Ptuj, which is situated above the street leading to the Pivka Gate and which the citizens of Ptuj have entrusted to me, and that I will, with the tower, always be subject to the city and the citizens. And whenever they demand it back, I will obediently return and surrender it to them without hesitation and with all the weapons that are in the tower and were entrusted to me. So help me God and all the saints! «
As part of the city security buildings, the tower also served as a prison where the important and wealthy could serve their sentences, paying higher fines, while the poorer paid lower fines but were imprisoned in muddy dungeons.
» The judge and the monthly deputies must, on the order of the vicedominus or the person authorized by him, at the beginning of the weekly market or when the need arises, inspect the weights at the butchers’ stalls and determine whether they are calibrated according to the Vienna weight measure. If fraud is found with one or more masters or assistants, then the master shall pay one pound of pennies and the assistant sixty pennies fine for each unjust lot or quint of each individual weight for the benefit of the city; furthermore, the master must serve three days and three nights in the city tower as punishment, and the assistant in the dungeon or muddy jail.“
1565 - 1603 / Construction of the Tower with a Gable Roof
At the beginning of the 16th century, Europe was threatened by the Turks, whom the cities, including Ptuj, would not have been able to resist for long with their defense mechanisms of that time. In the Middle Ages, trade traffic with Italian lands began to strengthen, and the Habsburgs acquired the County of Gorizia, so Italian immigration to our lands soon followed.
Among them were Italian construction masters who were in charge of strengthening the defenses. Initial works in Ptuj were led by Gianmaria dell Allio, succeeded by Antonio de Piva. In 1556, he had the old Gothic tower demolished; the new one was presumably built according to the plan of Francesco Marmoro de Pone, and between 1598 and 1603, when the tower was also completed, the construction was led by Alessandro Pasqualino.
The tower was then said to consist of 5 equivalent floors separated by rectangular stone cornices. The roof was a tent-like gable roof covered with slate.