The daily sentinel., 1912-04-20
Associated Press.

their campanile, just ten years ago,
TO them it seemed irrevocably lost,
gone glimmering through the dream
OF things that were. In those first
moments the disaster appeared ire
mediable, but still there is their tower
today, refashioned just as before, and
they rub their eyes almost thinking
it all bad dream.
The campanile fell on the morning
of July II, 1902, and already in the
spring of the next year work had been
begun on the new structure, but not
before much time had been lost and
angry passions reused over the form
1t should take and where ii should
stand. One party argued that the
ancients when one of their great
buildings was destroyed did not erect
another Just like it in its place, but
built the best which living architects
could produce. They also said that
the old tower had broken the SYM
metry of the piazza and that thus the
site OF the new structure should be
elsewhere. The other party was for
an absolute reproduction of the old
tower and in the old place, and it
won the day.
1t was soondisCovered that matters
might have been much worse than
they were; the campanile was indeed
a rubbish heap, but out of that rub
bish came wonderful things. bells
cracked but not destroyed, pieces OF
marble showing the designs and
shapes of what had been, old bricks
bearing the names of all the emper-
ors, from Nero to Theodosius, the an
gel which stood on the top was little
injured. and so on.
After careful examination it was
decided to use the old foundations
(tOo small for the weight which they
had been made TO carry for so many
hundreds OF years. as they were per-
feet So in 1903 the Count of Turin.
with Pope Plus X, then Patriach of
Venice, to bless it. laid the corner
stone of the reincarnation, in the CEN
ter of the original foundations.
Around them were driven, over an
area of twelve feet. 3.O76 fresh larch-
wood piles, from Cadore, the piles be-
ing, more or less nine inches in dia-
meter and twelve and a half feet long
Larch has two qualities which makes
perfect piles; they harden. almost pet
rify. in the peculiar clay of Venice,
and they are straight. They averaged
twelve to every three square feet,
making total enlargement of 500
square yards, and We're driven in by
"A J1O-pound weight, raised four feet
six inches. to absolute resistance.
However, the work presented many
difficulties, as for instance, during the
| driving, the northeast corner showed
| a depression of half foot, due to a
difference of soil so longer piles had
| to be selected and run through a
sandy deposit into the clay below.
On this bed of piles were placed
| large blocks of stone cemented to-
| gether, which when finished. it was
estimated. would hold a weight of go
| 600 tons, while the completed tower
is about 1000 tons.
| This work took two years, and a
year after the structure was already
eighteen feet high. Work was then
| suspended for over year, due to dis
agreements, so that the end of 1908
arrived before the shaft was finished.
All this time artists were working
over the decomposition of the beauti-
| full Loggia di Sansovino, which stood
at the foot of the tower, work of
wonderful perseverance, as, for in
stance. the celebrated group of the
Madonna with Christ and st. John,
in terra Gotta, was broken into two
thousand pieces, which have been pa
tiently picked out OF the debris, and,
with even more patience fitted to-
gether in such manner that what is
really patchwork appears perfect
whole that is, the Madonna and
Christ, but the st. John was so re-
duced to dust that not one piece was
found. The four bronze figures
l {. 4. a..I..
there as before, and the marvellous
gates which were literally torn apart
into fragments have been reconstruct
ed piece by piece, a perfect mosaic,
an impossibility but for old prints
which gave the designs. The marble
pillars are practically the original
ones, and where the missing chips
and pieces could not be found the
necessary material was taken from
the inside of the pillars themselves.
The only really new things are the
doors. which are of wood, but on the
| old model.
The tower as ii now stands tand
as it was when it collapsed) is 1922
feet high, the shaft, an absolute re-
production, is composed of about L.
200, 000 copper-colored bricks, each
handmade over wood fire. according
to antique measurements. Each was
tested before being put in place, and
ii not absolutely perfect was rejected.
The belfry looks out over the same en-
trancing view, one of its peculiar
tiles being that not canal can be
seen, and holds the recast bells and
the one old one which escaped injury,
the "Marangona, the largest of all,
which was brought from Crete centur-
les ago over the belfry stands the
original golden angel. She is thirty
feet high and is made of gilded copper
with the extremities in bronze. The
total cost of the reconstructed tower
as it now stands completed has been
about 1925, $50, almost entirely con-
tril.n,tnl L.. Annina and the nrnNi nnn