olo, which is said to have been attached to the base of the
tower, was consecrated in that year. The Campanile was finished, as far
as the bell-chamber at least, in 1148, under the Doge Domenico Moresini,
whose sarcophagus and bust surmount the portal of the San Nicoll del
Lido.

The chroniclers are at variance among themselves as to the date of the
foundation, nor has an examination of the foundations themselves led to
any discovery which enables us to determine that date; but one or two
considerations would induce us to discard the earlier epochs. The
foundations must have been designed to carry a tower of the same
breadth, tho possibly not of the same height, as that which has recently
fallen. But in the year of 888 had the Venetians such a conception of
their greatness as to project a tower far more massive than any which
had been hitherto constructed in Italy? Did they possess the wealth to
justify them in such an enterprise? Would they have designed such a
tower to match St. Mark's, which was at that time a small church with
walls of wood? It is more probable that the construction of the
Campanile belongs to the period of the second church of St. Mark, which
was begun after the fire of 976 and consecrated in 1094.

The height of the Campanile at the time of its fall was 98.60 meters
(322 ft.), from the base to the head of the angel, tho a considerable
portion of this height was not added till 1510; its width at the base of
the shaft 12.80 meters (35 ft. 2 in.), and one meter (3 ft. 3 in.) less
at the top of the shaft. The weight has been calculated at about 18,000
tons.

Thanks to excavations at the base of the tower made by Com. Giacomo
Boni, at the request of Mr. C. H. Blackall, of Boston, U. S. A., in the
year 1885, a report of which was printed in the Archivio Veneto, we
possess some accurate knowledge about a portion of the foundation upon
which this enormous mass rested.

The subsoil of Venice is composed of layers of clay, sometimes
traversed by layers of peat, overlying profound strata of watery sand.
This clay is, in places, of a remarkably firm consistency; for example,
in the quarter of the town known as Dorsoduro or "hard-back," and at the
spot where the Campanile stood. A bore made at that point brought up a
greenish, compact clay mixed with fine shells. This clay, when dried,
offered the resisting power of half-baked brick. It is the remarkable
firmness of this clay which enabled the Venetians to