As examples of early Latin towers, the round towers of S. Apollinare nuovo, and S. Apollinare in Classe, Ravenna, and perhaps the square tower of S. Giovanni Evangelista, may be given. Take any one of them, that of S. Apollinare nuovo, for instance. Cut off the upper stages by holding the hand above the eyes, and regard only the lower stages with the single-light windows, and you have a structure which might be Roman. It looks very much older than the complete tower; and it is the same with well-known Saxon towers in England, so that some persons have been misled into thinking that the lowest stages with straight-cut single-light windows are much older than the upper portion with double or treble-light windows--which does not at all follow, at least not from that fact, for they might be of the same date;--and they have argued that these lower stages both in Italy and England are older than the upper ones, notwithstanding the improbability that the old builders would place a heavy tower on walls originally intended to carry only a light roof. The Saxon towers have clearly a Latin or Comacine origin. The walls are usually of stone grouted in the old Roman manner; and when Lombard windows, of two or more lights, with a column dividing them, are used, they are, as a rule, in the upper and not in the lower stages. Unfortunately we have no towers of the earliest Saxon period still standing; but the resemblance between the later Saxon and the early Italian towers is apparent. The same may be said of the later Comacine towers, S. Satyrus, Milan, for instance (_see_ plate), which Cattaneo assigns to the ninth century, and regards as the prototype of Lombard towers; take away the little pensile arch ornament, which was characteristic of the Comacine style known as Lombard, and you have a tower which might be Saxon. Whilst Wilfrid was engaged in building Hexham, his friend and companion in travel, Biscop, was building the monastery and monastic church of Wearmouth. Biscop was a Saxon thane of Northumberland; he became a monk of the monastery of S. Lerino, and, according to Henry of Huntingdon, on his return from Rome, King Egfrid gave him sixty hides of land, on which he built the monastery of Wearmouth. Eight years later, the king granted him more land at Jarrow, upon which he built a monastery and church. The former was dedicated to St. Peter, the latter to St. Paul. [Illustration: TOWER OF S. SATYRUS, MILAN. _To face page 154._] On obtaining possession of the lands at Wearmouth, Biscop, according to Bede,[117] set out for Gaul, to find builders to build the monastic church, "juxta Romanorum quem semper amabat morem."