Here is the ruin of the great bell tower built by the great Banadona four centuries ago. It doesn’t look like much, a heap of rubble, shapeless, covered with earth and black moss. If you hadn’t been told it was once a bell tower, the pride of all Italy, you would think it was only an ugly rubbish pile mercifully grown over by the jungle of time. But dreams and memories lie buried here and the ghost of a man and his genius are said to haunt this spot…

Author: Herman Melville.