Torrazzo of Cremona

Cremona Cathedral

I'm reading The Note-Books of Captain Coignet. Chapter 3 finds him in northern Italy. When he visits Cremona he is impressed by the clock on the cathedral:

The town is considerable; there is a handsome cathedral with an immense dial; an arrow-hand makes the circuit of it once in a hundred years.

Cremona Cathedral Clock Face

It looks like this clock has 5 hands and one or two rotating dials. The face has six scales, from the outside in:

• the hour in Roman Numerals, from 1 to 24, clockwise starting at the bottom
• the names of the constellations of the zodiac
• a line of approximately 100 black dashes
• icons of the constellations
• the 12 months of the year
• another line of 100 dashes, this time in red
• numbers indicating day of the month or something.

The innermost black faced dial might be showing the phase of the moon, currently showing it as 'full'.
The numbered scale around it shows the day of the month and goes from 1 to 29 and a plus sign.

Detail of inner portion of clock face

I am not sure what the five hands are for. The one that reaches the central pivot is the time in hours. The other four have so sort of icon attached near the base. One is the sun, another is the moon, and seems to be attached to the moon phase disk. I have no idea what the other two symbols are, or how you would interpret what they are pointing to.

And I still don't know which hand indicates the passing of the years.

Google Maps 3D view of Cremona Cathedral

I would have provided links to the source of the images, but Google can't find them today even though it served them up just yesterday.