What the Venetians call paron de casa (the famous Campanile di San Marco) sits in St. Mark’s Square, facing the magnificent basilica. A solid square bell-tower, it is 99 metres high and once served as a beacon for sailors.
It was built in various stages on existing Roman foundations: starting in the 9th Century and continued in the 12th to 14th Centuries, after much renovation and reconstruction the bell-tower assumed its present appearance in 1511-1514 with the addition of a belfry topped by a turntable supporting the statue of the Archangel Gabriel that indicates the direction of the winds.

On 14 July 1902 the tower collapsed completely, also burying the Loggetta Sansoviniana (1537-1549) under its ruins. All of Venice demanded that it be rebuilt exactly as it was and as soon as possible. Work began in the Spring of 1903 and the new bell-tower was inaugurated in 1912. Apart from the Marangona, the bell that marked the work of marangoni, all the other large bells cracked and broke when the tower collapsed: the fragments of these bells were recovered and forged to form the new bells that were later donated to the city by Pope Pius X.

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