Do you know the story about the Lotr¹èak Tower?
Tower of the city’s ramparts. Observation post. Merchant warehouse. Coffee shop. Billiards saloon. Fire tower. Residence. Cannon battery. Gallery and museum. Belvedere. A place for a first kiss... Who knows? For each of us and for every historical period the Lotr¹èak Tower had a different meaning.
You've noticed, it has frequently changed its function – by necessity and by the will of its many former tenants. Still, the «owner» has always been the same and «today» it is 900 years old. It rented, closed and reopened it, but never sold it. Its name is Zagreb – the City of Zagreb.
In the middle of the 13th century at the demand of the Hungarian king Bela IV, Zagreb's city elders had the tower built whereby they accepted the privilege and obligation of protecting their own freedom. As the southern part of the city's defensive ramparts, the four-cornered, three-floor Romanesque tower, 30 metres high with walls 195 cm thick, defended the city from Tartars and thieves and with its loud bells warned of fires and storms. In the beginning this edifice was known as the Tower of Dverce – located along the Dverce entrance, which means “the small door”, which were located here up to the beginning of the 19th century. It got the name Lotr¹èak following the instalment of the bell “campana latrunculorum”, which translates as “the thieves’ bell”. It was rung in the tower to announce the closing of the city’s gates – in the evening at nine, in the summer at ten o’clock.
In time, as the Tartars gave up their attacks, the Tower lost its defensive and intelligence function, and as the city did not have the necessary funds for repair, maintenance or reconstruction for a new function, it decided to rent it. In this way our Tower was used in various purposes, and its interior adapted to the different functions and demands of its tenants.
In the middle of the 19th century a fourth floor was added to the Tower with windows and it has maintained this appearance to this day. With the addition of the fourth floor, the Tower was to have become a fire control and warning tower. However, by a play of chance a coffee shop with billiard tables was opened on the first floor where it was possible to play billiards in Zagreb for the first time. Later apartments were set up in the tower that lasted through to 1981 when the Tower was once again renovated and it's interior made for the first time open to the public.
The Tower is associated with another story and various legends about the Griè Cannon. In 1876 the City of Zagreb adopted an extraordinary article in its financial plan – 100 Forints for the acquisition of one gunpowder cannon. You probably ask yourself: Why?! The cannon was to give the sign for exact noon for the bell-ringers of the city's churches. An interesting fact is that the cannon, which was first fired on the 1st of January 1877 from the building on the Strossmayer promenade (today the Republic Meteorological Institute), was conveyed from the ship of the renowned English commander Horatio Nelson. In time the cannon was moved to the Lotr¹èak Tower and each day sounded-off exact noon and the memory of an event in Zagreb’s history.
According to another legend, the Lotr¹èak cannon was fired once exactly at noon into the Turkish camp, which was located on the other side of the Sava River and hit the rooster the Turkish chef was carrying on a platter to serve to the Pasha. After this unusual event the Turks scattered and did not attack Zagreb. According to some sources the tradition of firing a cannon go as far back as the 13th century when Bela IV left the people of Gradec a cannon and demanded that it be fired every day so that it would not rust.
And so, as it was that once the Tower warned of danger from foe, fire or storm with the ringing of bells, so it is that since 1877 the firing of the cannon at exact noon is followed by the «adjusting of Zagreb's clocks» and the ringing of Zagreb's church bells.
The only pause was made during the First World War right up to 1928 when it was fired at midnight. The reason was the opening of the Zagreb Convention. Panic ensued among the people of Zagreb but the Tower became more popular. From that day the firing of the Griè cannon has “split” each day in Zagreb.
Today the Tower and its Belvedere is open to the public and has a Gallery into whose ground floor one can enter form the south side, where an info and sales saloon of the museum-gallery centre is located. On the northwest corner of the Tower there are stairs that lead to the area for art exhibitions on the first floor and to the area of the Zagreb City Museum on the second and upper floors.
Whether you visit the Lotr¹èak Tower or not, one thing is for sure: the cannon from it’s top floor will, precisely at noon raise flock of birds from Zagreb’s squares and inner-city streets, for a moment stir people from their daily rhythm and take you, if you are not accustomed to it, with an indescribable feeling of fear from an unexpected explosion in your vicinity. But fear not, if you are not walking through the city centre with a large rooster on a platter you probably won’t get hit by anything…
Written by Marko Vrdoljak
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