run CAMPANILE. 



Al)stracl of paper read before llie Institute, 

 BV JACOB B. BROWN. 



I shall have the honor and pleasure of reading to you a few- 

 pages upon a subject of general interest. " But where shall I 

 begin?" says the mild husband in one of Balzac's nov^els. 

 "Ah! Just Heaven! But begin, then, at the end!" says 

 his sharp wife. 



The end came on the 14th of July, 1902 — for then the 

 Campanile fell. There is not the least necessity for telling 

 what Campanile. You all know perfectly well. And now 

 that it has ceased to exist in its original shape there is, has 

 been and will ever be only one Campanile in the world. Other 

 bell towers may need specification to identify them. Not so 

 the fair and far-renowned structure the outward realization of 

 whose grace and glory was lost to the world the other day. 

 Let us all fen-ently hope — only temporarily lost. 



To compare small things with great. When I think what 

 my Newport would be to me without the spire of Old Trinity, 

 I can form a faint notion of what \'enice, without the Campa- 

 nile, must be to a \'enetian. Rome without St. Peter's would 

 be bad enough. London would be an imperfect London were 

 St. Paul's not there. To fly across the plains of Lombardy 

 and see grand Milan without the white heap of marble and the 

 zenith-pointing needle of the Cathedral might almost be to 

 doubt what we are looking at. Or imagine Pisa without its 

 Leaning Tower or Florence without the scowling majesty of 

 the Palazzo della Signoria. But all the works that I have 

 mentioned and many more that I could speak of are matters of 

 yesterday compared with the Bell Tower of St. Mark's. The 

 sailor man who sees his good ship a sheer hulk, stranded and 

 bilged, can hardly feel a more agonized longing than the^\'ene- 

 tian nuist feel to see the shapely dwelling that he loved and 

 li\-ed in restored to its ancient stateliness. We are told that 

 everv one, from those that wear soft clothing and are in kinds' 



