The campanile rises 48 metres beside the abbey church, finished in 1063 and visible from miles across the flat marshlands of the Po Delta. It is built of warm red brick decorated with successive bands of double, triple, quadruple and quintuple arched windows that lighten as the eye travels upward — a classic Romanesque trick that gives the structure both elegance and apparent height.
The tower is structurally sound after a millennium and is the single most photographed object in the delta. It is not normally possible to climb it, but it is impossible to miss: the campanile is the first thing you see from the road and the last thing you see when you leave. Late afternoon, when the brick glows orange against the green of the rice fields, is the moment to bring a camera.