Tessera,
the Tower
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T
he cylindrical tower of Tessera, erected between the 9th and 10th centuries
by the Venetians, on a Romanesque-Byzantine plan, similar to the watch-towers in Ravenna,
Pomposa and Caorle, owes its preservation to the Benedictine monastery that was founded
there already in 1139, when the bishop of Treviso, Gregorio Giustiniani, consecrated the
church and the abbey in the name of S. Elena Imperatrice, mother of Costantine, and
entrusted the care to the Abbot of S. Benedetto Po, under the rule of Matilde di Canossa.
The tower, 24 metres high, with a base circumference of 14 m., has a base in trachyte
on which the walls are built. The brick used came from the destroyed town of Altino
which was often used in the Veneto region. It tapers towards the top where the little
windows of the belfry cell open. Inside there are two small bronzes, one of them bearing the date 1509; a memorial plaque remembers the restructuring carried out in 1505.
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