San Giorgio Maggiore Church

This guide to San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice opens before dawn on February 27, 1774, when the island's bell tower collapsed under its own weight after three centuries standing, not for the first time either. You'll hear about the Benedictine monk-architect brought in afterward to make sure it wouldn't happen again, and about Andrea Palladio's marble facade, left unfinished at his death and untouched for nearly two decades. It follows the church from that fall through to the tower you can climb today.