[It.; f. campana bell. The plural is in It. in -i, in Eng. usually in -es. Most frequently pronounced as Italian (kαmpanī·le), often as French (kαmpănī·l), but also anglicized as (kæ·mpănil, -əil).]
A bell-tower; esp. applied to the lofty detached bell-towers of Italy; a steeple generally.
1640. Somner, Antiq. Canterb., 160. Neere unto their Campanile or Steeple.
1691. Wood, Ath. Oxon., I./303. The Campanile or Tower at Darleston.
1762–71. H. Walpole, Vertue’s Anecd. Paint. (1786), III. 167. The great Campanile at Christchurch Oxford.
1855. Tennyson, Daisy, 13. Slender campanili grew By bays the peacock’s neck in hue.
1869. Freeman, Norm. Conq. (1876), II. ix. 400. The rude art of English masons strove to reproduce the campaniles of Northern Italy.
attrib. 1842. S. Lewis, Topogr. Dict. Eng., I. 582. On the north side of the north aisle … is a detached campanile tower.
1865. Morning Star, 4 April. The shaft is a splendid structure of the campanile order.
