Astronomical clock

Luckily the construction of the Clock is documented by a letter from Manfredi and illustrated by a text printed by Pietro Adamo de 'Micheli. So we have a precious testimony of the original purposes of the mechanism, of its way of pointing out the astrological time and also of the astronomical culture that in the Renaissance was so influent.
Manfredi's clock has at least eight effects. Here we list them synthetically. 

First Effect: let the people know how many hours have passed since sunset.
Second effect: to show the zodiacal sign in which the sun is.
Third Effect: to show if the moon is new or full.
Fourth effect: to make possible the calculation of the Ascendant; this is an astrological technical detail of the highest importance to infer the influence of the stars at an exact moment.
Fifth Effect: to describe which one between the seven known celestial bodies (Sun, Mercury, Venus, Moon, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn) reigns at some time.
Sixth Effect: Knowing the particular hours of the mantuans, each one marked with a sound; there were in fact six different bell sounds dividing the day.
Seventh effect: to know how many hours have passed after midday.
Eighth effect: to understand how long the daytime part and the night part of a certain day were.