Torre dei Lamberti / Palazzo della Ragione

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The best views in Verona from its tallest medieval tower—and a museum of modern art in a restored medieval palazzo

Like an exclamation point on the northeastern flank of bustling market square Piazza delle Erbe, the Torre dei Lamberti ★★ is, at 84m (277 feet), the tallest remaining tower in a city that once sprouted dozens of tower houses, each one vying to the skies to show off the relative wealth of Verona;s medeival merchant families.

The tower was started by the Lamberti clan in 1172 and added to successively over the centuries (which accounts for the alternating layers of tufa and brick). Its bells—Rengo (which called the town council to come sit) and Marangona (which ended the workday for the merchants)—continue to regulate the rhythms of Veronese life. The vertiginous views from the top are spectacular (there's an elevator for €1 if you don't care for all those stairs).

Palazzo delle Ragione and the Museo di Arte Moderna

The admission ticket (or Verona Card) to the Lamberti Tower also gets you into the Achille Forti Gallery of Modern Art, a collection of 1,400 paintings from the late 19th and early 20th centuries (nothing major—the few names of note include Francesco Hayez and Filippo de Pisis—but a nice colleciton).

This gallery opened in 2104 on the piano nobile of the neighboring red-and-white striped Palazzo della Ragione.

The building was started in the 12th century as one of Italy first civic palazzi and serving largely as various city and governremntal offices (save for a spell as a fine arts school in the late 19th and early 20th centurues) until the early 2000s.

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