Character Analysis
Bannadonna is pretty much the only character in "The Bell Tower". And that's how he likes it, because Bannadonna thinks Bannadonna is awesome. If he were in a comic, Bannadonna would even talk about himself in third person. "Bannadonna has completed his bell! Bannadonna will rule the world! Bow down before Bannadonna, you miserable little marginal characters, you!"
So Bannadonna is one part supervillain and one part Dr. Frankenstein, a mad inventor who trifles with the forces of life and death:
In firm resolve, no man in Europe at that period went beyond Bannadonna. (6.5)
He's the Lex Luthor of building bell-towers. He's so determined to create his sinister master plan bell-tower that when a workman gets nervous and fears to work on the giant bell, Bannadonna actually hits him with a ladle and kills him. Super-villains are not known for their progressive labor policies, but still, that seems a bit excessive.
Killing someone out of spite is fairly villainous. Still, there's something a bit ridiculous about Bannadonna. You expect a gothic villain mad scientist written after Frankenstein to be…well, mad. And scientist-y. He should be creating some real crime against nature, summoning some eldritch evil from the great beyond. But Bannadonna just makes a giant clockwork bell, with a scary looking figure as part of it. He's not making a monster; he's making a special effect that suggests a monster. This is the evil, prideful thing that defies the gods? A bell that's too big and a scary-looking bit of clockwork?
Bannadonna is supposed to be in the tradition of prideful villains and evil scientists defying God. He's the heir to Dr. Faustus, grasping at power in defiance of the divine. The problem is, Melville doesn't seem to have been able to come up with anything that evil for him to do. He's not Dr. Frankenstein or Dr. Jekyll or even Dr. Doom. You've probably never heard of "The Bell Tower" before, and that's because there are so many other, better supervillains in literature; Bannadonna doesn't really rate. As an evil mastermind, he's sad, really. But don't tell him that, or he will get upset and cry evil-mastermind tears.
Bannadonna's Timeline