Town Council met, under the chairmanship of Count Grimani, the mayor,
and without the least hesitation decided that a successor must be
erected: in the fine words of the count: "Dov'era, com'era" ("Where it
was and as it was"). Sympathy and contributions poured in from the
outside world to strengthen the hands of the Venetians, and on S. Mark's
Day (April 25), 1903, the first stone was laid. On S. Mark's Day, 1912,
the new campanile was declared complete in every part and blessed in the
presence of representatives of all Italy, while 2479 pigeons, brought
hither for the purpose, carried the tidings to every corner of the
country.

The most remarkable circumstance about the fall of the campanile is
that no one was hurt. The Piazza and Piazzetta are by no means empty at
half-past nine in the morning, yet these myriad tons of brick and stone
sank bodily to the ground and not a human bruise resulted. Here its
behaviour was better than that of the previous campanile of S. Giorgio
Maggiore, which, when it fell in 1774, killed one monk and injured two
others. Nor was S. Mark's harmed, although its sacristan confesses to
have been dumb for three days from the shock. The falling golden angel
from the top of the campanile was found in front of the central door as
though to protect the church. Sansovino's Loggetta, it is true, was
crushed and buried beneath the debris, but human energy is indomitable,
and the present state of that structure is a testimony to the skill and
tenacity which still inhabit Venetian hands and breasts.

What I chiefly miss in the new campanile is any aerial suggestion. It
has actual solidity in every inch of it, apart from the fact that it
also conveys the idea of solidity, as any building must which has taken
the place of one so misguided as to fall down. But its want of this
intangible quality, together with its newness, have displaced it in my