Bell tower

The Campanile di San Marco, 98.6 metres high, is composed of a square brick shaft 12 metres on each side and 53.75 metres high, above which are set the bell chamber and the spire, crowned by a statue of the Archangel Gabriel.

The history of St. Mark’s Campanile begins in 888, when Doge Pietro Tribuno ordered the construction of a watchtower to defend the city’s political center. This first tower, likely inadequate for its purpose, was demolished in 910, and a larger tower was built in its place, serving both as a beacon for mariners and as a bell tower for the city.

The foundations were reinforced by tamping the ground with piles 26 cm in diameter and 1.5 m long, driven to the ground. A double layer of oak planks, 12 cm thick per layer, was placed on top, topped by a stone base 12 meters on each side and 5 meters high. It was on this foundation that the “paron de casa” would develop and grow, surviving for almost 1,000 years, until its collapse on July 14, 1902.

The work proceeded slowly: the foundations were completed in 912, and only in the years 939-942, under the doge Pietro Partecipazio, did the elevation work begin, which was completed between 979 and 991 up to the level of the bell tower during the doge Tribuno Memmo.

For the next 150 years the bell tower does not appear to have undergone significant changes, but under the doge Domenico Morosini in the years 1148-1156, it was raised to a height of 60 metres.

It was during the reign of Vitale Michiel II, in the years 1156-1172, that the bell tower was built by Niccolò Barattieri and Bartolomeo Malfatti (or Malfatto) above which a wooden spire covered in gilded copper was erected.

Of course, at the time, it was impossible to predict the effect that the pointed, copper-covered top atop a tall, isolated tower would have on lightning. Benjamin Franklin’s studies would only see the light of day in the 18th century, and so the bell tower of San Marco became an irresistible attraction for lightning and thunderbolts. The long series of painful injuries he would suffer throughout his very long life began, as far as we know from the chronicles, on June 7, 1388, when a bolt of lightning struck him, setting the spire ablaze and damaging the west-facing wall.

On October 24, 1403, during celebrations for Carlo Zen’s victory over the Genoese, the spire caught fire again due to a lit lantern, and in 1489 it was torn off by a bolt of lightning, severely shaking the tower. Repaired as best as possible and covered with a simple wooden roof, the bell tower endured the terrible earthquake of March 26, 1511, which caused a new crack in the bell chamber, forcing the ringing of the bells to be prohibited. It was restored by Pietro Bon, who, after strengthening all the walls, built the bell chamber topped by a new gilded spire. On July 6, 1513, a rotating wooden statue of the Angel, covered in gilded copper, was placed on top of this to serve as a weathervane.

In July 1542, the Loggetta, designed by Jacopo Sansovino, was added to it, erected as a meeting place for the nobles, in front of the entrance to the Ducal Palace, to which, during the seventeenth century, the podium in front was added.

Lightning strikes continue insistently: the most terrible was the one on June 1, 1582, which struck it again, also setting fire to the wooden shops surrounding it at the base, and during the earthquake of July 10, 1591, the bell tower swayed so much that the bells rang by themselves.

Loved by all and visited by the greatest personalities of every era, the Campanile hosted Galileo Galilei from 21 to 24 August 1609, while he was busy presenting his telescope to the Doge.

In the years that followed, lightning struck it frequently, so much so that in 1653 a further restoration was necessary, this time by Baldassarre Longhena; but even this intervention was of little avail against the violence of the thunderbolts. The one on April 23, 1745, which tore away the corner facing the Clock Tower, was particularly painful; the falling debris struck four passersby and their small dog. The monument no longer offered any guarantee of stability. The greatest minds of the time gathered around the “great invalid,” including the mathematician Bernardino Zendrini and the Marquis Giovanni Poleni. The structure was shored up, reinforced and consolidated, but lightning struck it again in 1761 and 1762. Finally, on 18 May 1776, Abbot Giuseppe Toaldo (Pianezze 1719, Padua 1797), a theologian, astronomer and geologist at the University of Padua, placed a lightning rod on the cusp, to the great amazement of the entire city. From then on, lightning strikes no longer caused any damage.

With the fall of the Republic, in 1797, the Provisional Municipality ordered that all sculptures depicting lions be destroyed: even the two lions that adorned the north and south facades and the cube above the bell tower suffered this fate.

In 1818, the Golden Angel showed worrying signs of deterioration, hindering its rotation to the point of complete non-functionality. In 1822, it was replaced by a new statue designed by Luigi Zandomeneghi and executed by Giovanni Casadoro and Andrea Monticelli.

During the foreign occupations, the bell tower received no attention or care; when the last shops surrounding it were demolished in 1874, its worrying state of decay came to light.

Beginning in 1885, the architect and archaeologist Giacomo Boni, along with Luigi Vendrasco, master builder assigned to the Regional Office for the Conservation of Monuments of the Veneto, repeatedly reported its poor condition. In particular, Bon, in a report entitled “The Foundation Wall of the Bell Tower of San Marco ,” expressed great concern about the monument’s fragility, arguing that “the foundations would have been sufficient for a bell tower barely two-thirds its current height.”

In a flurry of opinions and views, work started and stopped, inspections, inspections, and retaliations, the Bell Tower slowly but inexorably moved toward its end. It fell on July 14, 1902, collapsing without claiming any victims, alone, in a deserted square, closed to the public and guarded by the police. A death foretold, one no one had been able to prevent.

It was rebuilt “as it was and where it was” and inaugurated on April 25, the feast of St. Mark, 1912, amidst singing and celebrations. In 1932, an elevator was installed inside the shaft, which has since allowed access to the bell tower in 30 seconds.