abstract:The astronomical clock of Besançon is housed in Besançon Cathedral. Besançon's present astronomical clock, made in 1860 by Auguste-Lucien Vérité :fr:Auguste-Lucien Vérité of Beauvais to replace an earlier and unsatisfactory one made by Bernardin in the 1850s, differs from those in Strasbourg, Lyon and Beauvais.
The immensely complicated astronomicalclock built by Richard of Wallingford, abbot of St Albans, was so complex it took eight years to run through its full cycle of calculations and was the most intricate machine ever built up to that point.
Seen in motion, this is at once a powerful skeleton clock and a curious astronomical one, a gift to anyone for whom a modern clock can do so much more than just tell the time.