Campaniles


 Campaniles

A campanile is a free-standing bell tower.  The most famous is St Mark's Campanile in Venice, towering over the square at 325 feet.  The centerpiece of the campus of my graduate school, University of California at Berkeley is Sather Tower, usually called simply the Campanile, stands at 307 feet.

But we have a campanile of our own here by Wilmington, the DuPont Carillon at Nemours, at 210 feet.

Here's a sketch comparing all three...

 

 

Construction of St Mark's Campanile was begun in about 940, but continued slowly over a long period.  It was extended, modified, and repaired several ties over the centuries.  It finally succumbed to gravity and collapsed in 1902.  It was rebuilt, completed in 1912. [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Mark%27s_Campanile]


St Mark's Campanile appears as a small detail in a panoramic painting I did of the Venice Canale Grande that serves as a crest over a doorway at our cottage.


 

 
 
 

Shortly after I moved to Berkeley in September 1960 I made sketches of various campus at nearby features with a Koh-I-Noor Rapidograph drafting pen and colored pencils which I mailed back to Mary, finishing at college, and out to other friends. Here are a couple of the UCBerkekey Campanile...

 


The DuPont Carillon is visible from afar, but is embedded in the Nemours estate surrounded by a stone wall topped with embedded glass shards.  I've never been close to it, but the Nemours estate and gardens can be visited with an appointment and admission fee.  Most of us are more familiar with the much shorter (115 feet) Rockford Tower, sitting in a public park and open to visitors on a regular basis.  Since Rockford Tower is visible from my library window, it is not surprising that I have painted and drawn it many times.

 

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