Campanile di Sant'Andrea

The fifty-metre brick bell tower of the duomo leans visibly to the south, a quirk of the soft river soils on which the town was built. It is one of several leaning towers in this part of the Veneto and Friuli but the most photographed: from the bridge across the Lemene the tilt is unmistakable, framed by the old mill wheels of Sant'Andrea below.

The tower dates to the late twelfth century and is the most visible reminder of the medieval origins of the town. It is not normally open for climbing, but you don't need to go up — the photograph is from the riverbank opposite.

things to do sight architecture
A story
The bell tower has tilted noticeably since the Middle Ages — about a metre and a half off vertical at the top — because of the soft alluvial soils of the Lemene riverbank. Various stabilisation campaigns over the centuries have arrested but not corrected the lean, which gives the cathedral square its distinctive silhouette.

Other places in Things to Do