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 {266} 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 {267} 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. [Illustration: _Campanile of St. Mark._]