THE CAMPANILK. 83 



the head of the Adriatic Sea — or Gulf of Venice, as it is now 

 commonly called. Sound \'enetian history- does not go farther 

 back than the ninth century, but tradition with its free foot 

 takes us right back into the fifth centur^^ We gather, gener- 

 ally, that the Campanile was begun in the fonner half of the 

 tenth centur\^ The year 913 is mentioned. It may or may 

 not be the true year. Owing to the constant mention of the 

 lagoons of Venice an opinion prevails that the islands are soft 

 and marshy of soil, like those in the river Neva upon which 

 St. Petersburgh is founded. The fact is quite otherwise. The 

 islands are so firm and solid that few houses or palaces have 

 suffered from settlement. Where they have come down it is 

 for other reasons. At from ten to sixteen feet below the surface 

 there is a firm bed of stiff clay ; below this a bed of sand and 

 gravel and then a thin layer of peat. Borings to a depth of 

 1500 feet show a regular succession of such beds. 



As I used the freedom of remarking just now, the builders 

 of those days knew what they were about and what they had 

 to deal with ; and the foundations which they laid were there 

 to stay. An old historian of the time writes in formal Italian : 

 "The foundations (of the Campanile) were laid with spurs 

 around about, which reaching forth on eveiy side like a star, 

 bound together in such a way the ground destined to support 

 the masoniy as to leave no fear that to the great weight it 

 would yield." And so far as can be known the tower did not 

 fall from any fault in the underpinning. The idea that it 

 could fall at all never entered a Venetian's mind. And when 

 there occurred — as very often there did ( and does ) occur 

 among the fellow citizens of Goldoni anything to excite wonder 

 and clamorous, vivacious comment some one was sure to say : 

 " What's all this noise about ' Xelo forse casca el Campanil 

 de San Marco ? " " Has the impossible come to pass ? Alas ! 

 To-day the impossible has come to pass. 



A somewhat more businesslike account is this: "The 

 builders of the great Campanile of St. Mark dug down to the 

 bed of stiff clav and over the whole area of the footings of the 



