Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Leaning Campanile - One of Many in the Veneto

photo by Nereo ZaneNereo sent me this photo, knowing that I get a kick out of less-than-perfectly-perpendicular bell towers.
Travel around the Venetian lagoon and you'll see these Italian belfries just about everywhere.
Many are not currently standing perfectly straight up and down.
This one is in Burano, but look around and in a short time you'll likely find more.

As for the spray-painted bedsheet - it's a form of protest.
It seems that when this photo was taken a few years ago, the locals didn't want a new cell-phone tower erected on their island.

I wonder if anyone thought about hiding it in the campanile.

5 comments:

René Seindal said...

There are many leaning towers in Venice. Besides the one in Burano there are the towers of S. Giorgio dei Creci, San Pietro in Castello and one behind S. Stefano, though I don't think it belongs to S. Stefano.

The whole city is built on mud and sand, so a tower can easily loose its balance over the centuries. Its basically the same thing as in Pisa. That was what happened to the campanile of S. Marco which collapsed in 1902.

I've read somewhere that Venice has had about 200 church towers, but only 170 remains, and many of them have been rebuilt several times due to collapses.

Anonymous said...

Cell-phone tower on the belfry? Yesssss, they already thought of install antennas over there ;-)

About the campanile di San Marco: It collapsed due to lacks in the structure not because it lose balance.

Mike C said...

Is it possible to get on top of those towers? I know you can get into Campanile di San Marco, what about the others? Would love to photograph from them.

Anonymous said...

Mike, just ask for the priests. Years ago I found a photo-book of views of Venice from most of the belfries in that area. I don't remember the title though.

Mike C said...

Excellent, thanks for the tip.