The Lido was Venice’s wall against the sea, and its guns needed eyes. From towers like this one, soldiers watched the approaches and worked out how far away a ship was.
At a glance
This tall, plain tower stands in Via Renato Morandi at San Nicolò, the northern end of the Lido, close to the Sebastiano Vernier battery. It is one of several military telemetry towers built along the island: structures from which the enemy could be spotted and distances calculated, to be passed on to the batteries. Others stood on the Lungomare Marconi, near the Malamocco fort and along the road to the Alberoni.
Key facts
- Type: military telemetry (rangefinding) tower
- Where: Via Renato Morandi, San Nicolò, near the Sebastiano Vernier battery
- Purpose: spotting ships and measuring their distance for the Lido’s batteries
- Date and designer: not documented in the sources we have found; the sister tower on the Lungomare Marconi was built in the early twentieth century
- GPS: 45.42641, 12.38122 · Open in Google Maps
History
Between the nineteenth and the early twentieth century the Lido, the long sandbar that shields the lagoon, was fortified as the front line of Venice’s defence. Batteries were dug into the dunes, and beside them rose telemetry towers: tall look-outs whose crews sighted targets at sea and calculated their range, so that the guns could be laid on them.
The best-known of these towers, on the Lungomare Marconi, dates from the early twentieth century; it was sold by the state and turned into holiday flats. For the tower at San Nicolò we have not found a construction date or the name of its designer, and we do not give one. If you know its history, write to us.
What you see
A square concrete shaft several storeys high, with small windows set one above the other and a railed platform on the roof, a slender balcony near the top on one side. It rises from a lower two-storey block, behind a lawn and trees.
Nearby
- Aeroporto Giovanni Nicelli — the Lido’s historic airfield, next door
- San Nicolò al Lido — the doge’s church of 1043, on the lagoon shore
Sources
- La Nuova Venezia, 2020 — Torre telemetrica all’asta: what the Lido’s telemetry towers were for, the one in Via Morandi near the Vernier battery and the others on the island, the early twentieth-century date of the Lungomare Marconi tower
- OpenStreetMap: the tower’s position at Via Renato Morandi 9
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