Once you pass Torre Grimani, here we are in piazza Castello, where the most important buildings of the abbey complex face. In addition to the Torre Campanaria, which in ancient times also served as a watchtower, you can admire:

- the Cancelleria Abbaziale, where civil affairs were administered and there were also prisons;

- the former Abbaziale residence, now the town hall, which features on its facade the coats of arms of five families of commendatory abbots, that is, not residing in Sesto but often Venetian and then Roman bishops or cardinals who governed the Abbey after 1441. 

- the entrance to the Abbey itself, flanked by a staircase leading to the Salone Abbaziale. 

Piazza Castello is the heart of the summer season of musical performances organized by the Pro Sesto.

Photo Lorenzo Pegoraro for BorghiClic.

After passing Torre Grimani, the vast courtyard opens up, onto which the main buildings of the abbey complex face.

The bell tower is located in front of the entrance, equidistant from the "palazzo della Cancelleria" and the front of the loggetta and the portico in front of the church vestibule.

It is a square-based brick tower, almost 8 meters per side, 33.60 meters high. It was probably erected in the 11th-12th century, following lagoon examples, characterized by vertical pilasters and rare openings along the sides. At the top, the triple arches of the bell chamber open up. Around 1788, a lightning strike hit the bell tower, severely damaging it, as evidenced by a document from the Parish Archive.

Information taken from L'Abbazia di Santa Maria di Sesto al Reghena, edited by Umberto Trame.

“Finding myself with some freedom from my usual occupations, and enjoying perfect tranquility in this Province at present, I resolved last week to go to Sesto. I found a well-built land with the abbey in the form of a castle and equipped with doors, towers, and moats with water that flows perennially”.

Thus the Barnabite friar Angelo Maria Cortinovis, at the end of the 18th century, describes Sesto: and among the towers he mentions, the bell tower of Santa Maria in Silvis stands out, one of the elements that still today characterize and make the profile of the abbey complex unmistakable and announce it from the neighboring villages.

It is located in front of the entrance gate to Piazza Castello - Torre Grimani -, equidistant from the palace known as “della Cancelleria” and the west front of the loggetta and the portico in front of the church vestibule. Due to its position, it acts as a hinge between the Cancelleria, a symbol of the civil institution, and the church-residence, a symbol of the religious one.

It is a square-based brick tower of 7.70 meters per side, 33.60 meters high, which towers over the other surrounding buildings.

It was probably erected in the 11th-12th century, following lagoon examples – Torcello, above all –, characterized by vertical pilasters and rare openings along the sides. However, a later dating cannot be excluded: the end of the 13th, beginning of the 14th century. From 1344 onwards, it is mentioned in documents as a “bell tower”. The brickwork is embellished with high double-ring arches, three per side, of equal height on the east, north, and west fronts, and of different height on the south front: the central one is lower, lowered at a later time to make room for the clock that appears in a late 18th-century drawing by G. Carriero. The current clock is from 1914. Just below the clock, the restorations ten years ago allowed the recovery of an abbey coat of arms, that of Giovanni Michiel. On the west side, about 3 meters from the ground, there is a small lowered arch door, and just below, two projecting corbels that suggest the presence of a balcony or a passage at height towards the Cancelleria building.

The wall section of the shaft narrows as it rises. The triple arches of the bell chamber were originally supported by paired columns, then replaced, probably in the 16th century, by small pillars; with the restoration of the second half of the 1960s, they were in turn replaced by false paired Romanesque columns, still present. In the Renaissance period, the shaft above the bell chamber was equipped with an octagonal block that can be inferred from 16th and 17th-century drawings, but no longer appears in Carriero's 1798 drawing.

Angelo Maria Cortinovis tells us, at the end of the 18th century, that a lightning strike during the furious storm of May 3, 1798, destroyed the octagonal termination of the tower and killed the little Michele who, along with his father Giuseppe, was ringing the bells.

The current appearance dates back to the second half of the 16th century. A legend claims that the project was commissioned by the Grimani to the great Andrea Palladio, a good friend of the noble Venetian family.

On the facade, you can admire the coats of arms of five commendatory abbots.