St Mark's Campanile

The brick tower in Piazza San Marco rises 98.6 metres, the tallest structure in Venice, and Venetians call it the master of the house. It began as a watchtower and a sea-mark in the tenth century, raised in stages by successive doges to guard the harbour entrance and guide ships home. A belfry and spire were added in the twelfth century, and in the fourteenth the spire was gilded so that sailors far out in the Adriatic could see it catch the sun. After lightning and an earthquake had repeatedly damaged the top, the belfry and spire were rebuilt in stone between 1511 and 1514 to an earlier design by Giorgio Spavento, and on the summit a gilded archangel Gabriel was set up as a weather vane, turning always to face the wind.

The form is almost severe: a plain square shaft of brick with shallow pilaster strips, then an arcaded belfry of white Istrian stone, an attic and a pyramidal spire. The attic carries reliefs that reward a close look through binoculars or from the top: two figures of Venice personified as Justice, enthroned between lions with sword and scales, and two winged lions of Saint Mark. At the foot of the tower stands the Loggetta, a small marble and bronze pavilion by Jacopo Sansovino finished in 1546. For centuries the five bells governed the city's day, calling workmen to the Arsenal, summoning the Great Council and tolling for executions; only the largest, the Marangona, is original.

The tower you see is in fact a replica. On the morning of 14 July 1902, after days of widening cracks, the whole campanile slid straight down into a heap of rubble. Because it fell vertically, the basilica was spared; the Loggetta was crushed and a corner of the Marciana Library lost, and the only fatality was the custodian's cat. That same evening the city council voted to rebuild it as it had been and where it had been, and the new tower, strengthened inside with reinforced concrete, was inaugurated on Saint Mark's Day, 25 April 1912. A lift installed in 1962 reaches the belfry in about half a minute. It was from this belfry, in August 1609, that Galileo showed his telescope to Venetian nobles.

Getting there

The campanile stands in Piazza San Marco, in the historic heart of Venice. Venice Marco Polo Airport (VCE) is about 8 km away.