Until 1518 there hung, from a projecting beam half-way up the tower, a wooden cage, grated with iron bars, in which some criminals were placed to endure the changes of the weather, as well as hunger and thirst, so long as life should last; for but meagre supplies of bread and water were let down to the cage from the top of the tower. Perhaps it was the influence of the golden angel which crowns the Campanile, and is kind enough to turn with every wind that blows, that wrought the merciful reform; for the cage was banished within a few months after he assumed the most commanding position in the Republic.
We are told that in the old days there were four bells rung from the tower for different purposes. La marangola sounded at dawn to call the laboring-classes to their work; la sestamezzana announced the opening of the official bureaux; la trottera called the councillors to their duties; and the bell del malefizio was the knell that tolled during executions. About 1670 a fifth great bell was brought from Candia, which was heard only on Ascension Day, when the Doge espoused the Adriatic.
All lovers of Venice can sympathize with Arthur Hugh Clough, and will remember with delight the view from the Campanile, when for the first time the intricacies of this charming labyrinth can be unravelled,—
"My mind is in her rest; my heart at home
In all around; my soul secure in place,
And the vext needle perfect to her poles.
Aimless and hopeless in my life, I seemed
To thread the winding byways of the town
Bewildered, baffled, hurried hence and thence,
All at cross purpose ever with myself,
Unknowing whence or whither. Then, at once,
At a step, I crown the Campanile's top,
And view all mapped below; islands, lagoon,
An hundred steeples, and a myriad roofs,
The fruitful champaign, and the cloud-capt Alps,
And the broad Adriatic."
During the Crusades, in the cities of the East where the Christians were in power, it was customary to assign to each nation that had aided in the conquest a quarter in which they could live and worship in their own church. But at St. Jean d'Acre it happened that the Venetians and Genoese, enemies as they were, used the Church of St. Sabbas in common. As might have been foreseen, quarrels arose, and both claimed the building as exclusively their own. So fierce did the troubles become that at length the Genoese burned the church, with other buildings of the Venetian quarter. Such an insult could not be borne, and under Lorenzo Tiepolo the Venetians completely defeated the Genoese. In proof of the complete triumph of the Republic, two richly sculptured pillars, a part of the gateway of St. Sabbas, and a low column of red porphyry were sent to Venice. Naturally these were placed in the beloved Piazza; and the Senate decreed that the pillars should stand between the church and the Ducal Palace, at the inner entrance to the Piazzetta. The short column near by, at the southwest corner of San Marco, was put to good use, and called the "Pietra del Bando." From it the laws of the Republic, the sentences of banishment, and other important decrees were promulgated.
Campanile of St. Mark.
But the most interesting columns stand at the opposite end of the Piazzetta, at the entrance from the lagoon. So typical were they of the spirit of Venice that they were duplicated in other cities under her sway. On one is a statue of that young Syrian warrior who stood the early Venetians in good stead as their patron saint, and still stands there upon the crocodile, at the chief entrance to the city, crowned by a nimbus, holding a shield on his right arm, and a sword in his left hand.
Opposite St Theodore, on the second column, is one of the many lions of St. Mark, with the open book. This one, alas! was desecrated by the French, and the gospel words replaced by the legend "Droits de l'Homme et du Citoyen," which caused a witty gondolier to say that "Saint Mark had turned over a new leaf." This lion made a part of the brazen menagerie that went to Paris in 1797, and returned to Venice in 1815. During his stay there he was appropriately lodged in the Invalides, no doubt suffering keenly the pains of dislocation. We must not forget that the Columns themselves have an interesting history. They form a sort of open door to the Piazzetta from the Molo, and are the first objects to attract the attention of the stranger who enters Venice from the sea. These two and another were brought from the islands of the Archipelago in 1127. One sank entirely out of sight, and has never been found, and these two lay on the shore a half-century before any one succeeded in raising them. But when the Doge Sebastiano Ziani promised any grazia onesta that might be asked by any man who could erect them on the Piazzetta, Niccolò il Barattiere (Nick the Blackleg) placed them on their pedestals, and demanded that gambling, which was forbidden elsewhere in Venice, might be carried on between the pillars. For some time this privilege brought wealth to the family Barattiere, and ruin to so many others that the Senate resorted to a cunning device to render the promise of the Doge of no effect. It was decreed that all public executions should occur "between the Columns," which made the place of such ill omen that no one could be enticed to come there for any "chance" that could be offered.