The Campanile of San Marco

Why it matters

The Campanile stands alone in Piazza San Marco, near the front of St Mark's Basilica, and at 323 feet it is the tallest structure in the city. Venetians call it el paròn de casa, the master of the house. It is one of the first things a ship sees coming in from the sea, which was the point: it began as a watchtower, built to sight approaching ships and to guide Venetian vessels safely into the harbor.

It is also a replica, and an honest one. The old tower collapsed on 14 July 1902, and the one you climb was rebuilt on the same spot to the same design and finished in 1912. The tower's great value to a visitor is the view from its belfry, the one place in the center high enough to see how Venice lies on its lagoon.

A watchtower that became a bell tower

The first tower was probably begun around the start of the tenth century, after Magyar raiders had plundered the mainland in 898 and 899 and Venice built defenses against attack from the sea. Work went on sporadically for generations as the tower was slowly raised. A belfry and spire were added in the twelfth century, and in the fourteenth the spire was gilded so that it could be seen by ships far out in the Adriatic.

The tower reached its full height in 1514, when the belfry and spire were rebuilt to a Renaissance design by Giorgio Spavento and the spire was gilded again. Its bells ran the life of the Republic. They marked the start, the breaks and the end of the working day, called the government's councils to session and announced executions, each bell with its own name and task. The Marangona, the largest, rang at sunrise to open the workday and summoned the Great Council.

On 21 August 1609 Galileo Galilei climbed to the belfry to demonstrate his telescope to the procurator Antonio Priuli and other nobles; three days later he presented it to the doge.

The collapse and the rebuilding

In the days before the collapse, cracks were found spreading through the tower and were watched closely. On the morning of Monday 14 July 1902 the square was evacuated, stones began to fall, and a few minutes later the whole tower came down. Investigations found that the access ramps between the inner and outer shafts had given way one on top of the other, and without them the outer shaft caved in. Because the tower fell straight down and stood apart from other buildings, the damage around it was limited; the worst loss was Sansovino's Loggetta at its foot, which was crushed.

The city decided to rebuild it exactly as it had been, in the same place. The foundations were enlarged to spread the load, reinforced concrete was used inside, and the shaft was finished in 1908. The belfry, the attic and the spire followed, with the figures of Venice as Justice reassembled from fragments found in the rubble. On 5 March 1912 the restored angel was hoisted to the top, and the new tower was inaugurated on 25 April 1912, the feast of Saint Mark.

Of the five bells that had hung in the old tower, only the Marangona survived. Pope Pius X, who had been Patriarch of Venice when the tower fell, paid for the other four to be recast as a gift to the city.

What you actually see

From the Piazza, look at the plain brick shaft, about fifty meters of it, square in plan and lined with shallow pilasters. Above it sits the belfry with its open arches and bells, then the attic with the winged lion of Saint Mark and the figures of Venice as Justice, and on top a pyramidal spire with the golden archangel Gabriel as its weather vane.

At the foot, facing the basilica, is the Loggetta, a small marble building by Jacopo Sansovino of 1537 to 1546 with statues in its niches. Patricians waited here before meetings of the Great Council, and it was pieced back together after 1902 from what could be recovered.

The ascent is by elevator: a permanent lift was installed in 1962 inside the inner shaft, and it takes about half a minute to reach the belfry. From the top you look straight down on the basilica's domes and the Doge's Palace, along the Riva to the east, across the basin to San Giorgio Maggiore and the Giudecca, over the roofs of the whole city to the lagoon.

How to visit

The Campanile is visited with a ticket sold through the basilica's official site, which lists the tower among its visits alongside the church, the Pala d'Oro and the museum. Lines at the foot of the tower can be long on busy days, so book ahead in season (see booking ahead).

The visit itself is short. The elevator goes up, you have the four sides of the belfry to walk round, and the elevator comes down; half an hour is plenty unless you want to linger over the view.

Combine it with the basilica and the Piazza, or climb here first to understand the shape of the city before you walk it. The bells still ring, rung automatically since the last restoration.

Honest notes

The tower you see is less than a century and a quarter old. The saying com'era, dov'era, as it was, where it was, became the rule for its reconstruction, and it is a faithful copy, not the medieval tower, and the view from it is the same one Galileo showed the nobles in 1609 only in outline.