"Leaning" Campanile di San Stefano (St. Stephen's Belfry) in Venice
N 45° 25.998 E 012° 19.918
33T E 291310 N 5034549
"Leaning tower" of the Campanile di San Stefano (St. Stephen's Belfry) is very interesting manifestation of difficulties in construction engineering in Venice, where every builder's mistake can be fatal...
Waymark Code: WM7DH2
Location: Veneto, Italy
Date Posted: 10/09/2009
Views: 76
Not only Pisa has famous "Leaning Tower", you can also find leaning towers in another European historic cities and especially Venice is rich for that kind of phenomena. In the city is several leaning bell towers, the most notable among them is Campanile di San Stefano (St. Stephen's Belfry), which is tilted more than 200 cm from own vertical axis.
The "leaning" is caused by problems in basements of the tower - they are shallow, their original wooden piles are probably in bad shape, and moreover the tower was built on composition of several
uncolsolidated and waterlogged coastal sediments...
The late Renaissance bell tower, erected in 1544, was struck by lightning on 7th August 1585 and collapsed onto nearby houses with bells melted. Replacements came from England, where Catholic churches were being stripped under Elizabeth I. Tower was rebuilt in 17th and 18th centuries and the base was reinforced in 1902-1906 due to an earthquake in 1902 and consequent leaning. Now is under electronic monitoring to control the structure, and were made of the first preliminary works on the tower's consolidation. Hopefully this beautiful bellfry will not follow the fate of original St. Mark's Campanile which collapsed in 1902...