Campanile di San Marco

At 98.6 metres, it's the tallest structure in Venice, and on July 14, 1902, it fell down. The entire bell tower collapsed into a heap of rubble in Piazza San Marco at 9:47 in the morning, and the only fatality was the caretaker's cat — a miracle that earned the tower the reputation of having fallen "like a gentleman." It had been showing cracks for weeks, and the piazza had been prudently cleared.

The original foundation dated to the 9th century, built on a platform of oak beams resting on clay into which poplar pilings had been driven. Over a thousand years, those pilings shifted, the clay compressed, and the whole thing became unstable. Galileo used the tower in 1609 to demonstrate his telescope to the Venetian Senate, and the tower already had structural issues even then. Several restorations had tried to shore it up, but ultimately, gravity won.

The city council voted immediately to rebuild "dov'era e com'era" — where it was and how it was. The new campanile, completed in 1912, is externally identical to the old one but with a modern reinforced foundation of cement and iron instead of the original wooden beams. The inauguration was held on St. Mark's Day, April 25, 1912 — exactly one thousand years after the original foundation was supposedly laid, a coincidence too good not to exploit.

The view from the top is the best in Venice, precisely because it's the one view that doesn't include the Campanile itself. On clear days, you can see the Dolomites. The five bells each had a specific function in the Republic: one summoned the Senate, one announced executions, one called workers to lunch, one marked midnight, and one rang for a condemned man's last hour.