Venice Angel Now Mounted on Ball Bears, A Weather Vane

1916

Modernized the Angel

Mounted on Ball Bearings, It Now Acts as a Weather Vane

There are many kinds of angels ranging in style from those we read about in the Bible to those who bring out talent on the stage. It has remained, however, for a writer in the American Machinist to discover a new type of the seraphic assortment. This angel is "ball bearing" and entirely unlike the common or garden variety of angels. It stands on top of the famous tower known as the Campanile di San Marco, in Venice, and swings to the wind like a weather vane.

The statue of the angel San Marco, which surveyed the old city of Lagunea since the sixteenth century, was found but little damaged among the ruins after the collapse of the tower. It was repaired and now stands again on the lofty height, but is supported in a very different manner from the old, for it now rests on modern ball bearings.

This method of mounting allows the statue to be turned around a vertical axis by the wind, so that it swings automatically into such a position that the angel always presents the smallest surface to the wind or storm. If one considers that the large wings of the angel, which are eleven feet high. project straight backward, it may be imagined that the difference of the wind pressure is considerable, whether the wind blows against the small front surface or against the side exposing the large face of the wings.

—Stevens Point Daily Journal, Stevens Point, Wisconsin, July 29, 1916, page 3.