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Show I . a V Irinll r vrt VI I fl i IL L Venetians Erect a New Tower Three Hundred Hun-dred Feet High (Special Correspondence to Standard ) Romo, April 20. As the Venetians stood about tho utter ruins of their campnnile, Just ton years ago, to them it seemed Irrevocably lost, "gone glimmering through the dream of things that wore." In those first moments the disaster appeared irremediable, but still thero Is their tower today, refashioned Just aB before, be-fore, and they rub their eyes almost thinking It all a bad dream. The campanile fell on the morning of July 11, 1902, and already in tho spring of the next year work had been begun on the new structure, but not Cicforo much time had been lost and angry passions roiiBcd over the form it should tako and whero It should stand. Ono party argued that the ancients whon one of their great buildings was destroyed did not oroct another Just like It in its place, but built the best which living architects could produce. They also Bald that the old towor had broken tho symmetry sym-metry of tho 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. It was soon discovered that mat-tors mat-tors might have been much worse than they were; tho campanile was indeed a rubbish heap, but out of that rubbish came wonderful things, hells cracked but not destroyed, pieces of marbl showing the designs and shaprj of what had been, old bricks bearing the names of all tho emperors, emper-ors, from Noro to Theodoslus, the an- I gC'l which stood on the top was little ' injured, and so on. After careful examination it was I decided to use the old foundations (too small for tho weight whlchthey had beon mado to carry for so manv hundreds of years), as they were perfect per-fect So in 1903 tho Count of Turin" with Pope Plus X., then patriarch of Venlco, to bless It, laid tho cornor-stono cornor-stono of the reincarnation, In the cen" ter of tho original foundations. Around thorn were driven, over an area of 12 I feet, 3.07G fresh larchwood piles, froni 1 Cadore. the piles being, more or less I nine Inches in diameter and twelve' 1 - " , nnd a half foot long. Larch has two qualltios which make perfect piles; they harden, almost petrify, in the peculiar pe-culiar clay of Venlco, and they are straight They averagod twelve to overy three square feet, making a total enlargement of 300 squaro yards, and were driven In by a 570-pound weight, raised four feet six inches, to absolute resistance However, tho work presented manyi difficulties, as for Instance, during tho driving, the northwest corner showed a depression of half a foot, due to a difference of soil, so longer piles had to bo selected and run through a sandy deposit Into ihe clay below. On this bed of piles were placed , large blocks of stone cemented together, to-gether, which when flnlshod. It was estimated, would hold 90,000 tons while the completed tower 1s about 20,000 tons. This work took two years, and a year after the structure was already eighteen feet high. Work was then suspended for over a year, due to disagreements, dis-agreements, so that tho end of 190$ arrived boforo the shaft was finished All this time artists were working over tho rccomposltlon of the beautiful beau-tiful Loggia dl SansovJno, which stood at the foot of the tower, a work of wonderful persevoranco, as for instance, in-stance, the celebrated group of the Madonna, with Christ and St. John, in terra cotta, was broken into two thousand thou-sand pieces, which have been patiently patient-ly picked out of the debris, and, with oven more patience, fitted together in such a manner that what is really patchwork appears a perfect whole, that Is, the Madonna and Christ, but the SL John was so reduced to dust that not ono piece was found. The four bronze figures which stood In the niches are now there as before, and the marvelous gates which were literally torn apart Into fragments have boen reconstructed, piece by piece, a perfect mosaic, an impossibility impossi-bility but for old prints which gavo the designs. The marble pillars aro practically the original ones, and where tho missing chips and pieces could not be found the necessary material ma-terial was taken from the inside of the pillars themselves. The only really real-ly new things are the doors, which are of wood, but on the old model. The tower as It now stands (and aa it was when it collapsed) Is 322 feet high, tho shaft, an absolute reproduction, reproduc-tion, is composed of about 1,200,-000 1,200,-000 copper-colored bricks, each handmade hand-made over a wood fhe, according to antique measurements. Each was tested before being put in place, and If not absolutely perfect was rejected. The belfry looks out over the same entrancing view, one of Its peculiarities peculiari-ties being that not a canal can bs seen, and holds the recast bells, and tho one old one which escaped Injury, the "Marangona." the largest of all, which was brought from Crete centuries cen-turies ago Over the belfry stands the original golden angel. She Is 30 feet high and Is made of gilded copper cop-per with tho extremities In bronze. The total cost of the reconstructed tower as It now stands completed has been about $225,150, almost entirely contributed by Venice and tho province pro-vince of Venice. The inauguration takes place April 25fl coinciding with the opening of tho great bi-annual International Exhibition Exhibi-tion of Paintings and Sculpture, which will tako place on April 23. It 1b difficult for strangers to understand under-stand what the campanile meant to Venetians, and therefore what its reappearance re-appearance signifies to them. It was begun as far back as S8S, and was a watch-tower to signal the arrival of tho enemy, of course, from the sea. In 1329 It had already been transformed trans-formed Into a bell tower; In 1417 It was provided with a marble belfry, and In 1517 boasted an angel as its crown of glory, which was later destroyed de-stroyed and replaced by the present golden oue. In all these centuries tho campanile has beon the protection of the city, through It no enemy could , . . approach unexpectedly, while the peal of bells called the citizens to arms or . to thanksgiving, as the case might bo- 1 ' |