Arms Square

Beyond the Sea Gate, the city suddenly opens onto a spacious square where its everyday services came together. Beside it stood the ruler's residence, a guard tower, and an arsenal, while armorers repaired equipment before it was sent into storage. Their trade disappeared long ago, but it left the square its current name. Beneath the large clock face of the Clock Tower, a small door has been preserved in the lower level.

In eighteen sixty-five, the Austrian administration sent the clockmaker Franjo Homen from Graz to Kotor. He was tasked with putting the mechanism of the city clock in order. For the master, it was a business trip; for Kotor, it was the repair of the instrument by which officials, guards, merchants, and sailors set their time.

The clock stood where the whole city could use it: above its largest square, just beyond the Sea Gate. On either side stood the ruler's residence, a guard tower, and an arsenal. Armorers repaired weapons here, and then the weapons were stored in the arsenal. This work gave the square its current name—Arms Square. The weapons workshops have long been gone, but the name remains.

Franjo Homen repaired the clock and decided not to return to Graz. In return for permanent maintenance of the mechanism, he was allowed to open a workshop free of charge in the lower room of the tower. He settled in Kotor and began earning a living by repairing and making clocks literally beneath the very clock face for which he was accountable to the city. If the mechanism had stopped, the master would have risked both his agreement and the premises from which his household earned its living.

The duty passed to Franjo's son Robert, then to his grandson Mirko and great-grandson Ljubomir. The mechanism remains entirely mechanical: once a day, the clockmaker raises heavy stone weights that drive a system of gears. About once every two weeks, it needs to be lubricated. Without this, the tower clock face becomes a motionless circle.

Ljubomir began learning from his father at the age of twelve, and at twenty-five he took over the workshop. The family agreement of eighteen sixty-five is still in force: the Homen family uses the premises in the tower and, in return, maintains the city clock. Ljubomir's son helps his father with the mechanism, but he chose a seafaring profession and does not intend to take over the clock workshop.

Beneath the large clock face, the door of the small workshop still opens. Behind it, every morning, the weights that keep the clock above Arms Square running are raised by hand.