As Florence’s heritage-enriched streets have played host to increasing diversity in visiting admirers, so too has the city’s aural narrative grown increasingly eclectic in nature. The excitable chit-chat derived from a dozen languages permeates through the primary tourist hotspots, melding with clashing pans and plates, vocally projecting street musicians and the almost-inaudible beeping of electric vehicles. Such a melting pot of auditory fixtures can only be rivalled by the sound that has characterised Florentine neighbourhoods for centuries on end: the melodious outpouring of city bells, whose once-pivotal role in our day-to-day actions has shifted dramatically in the past near-millennium.
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n contrast to the likes of Bologna and Verona—whose respective bell-ringer associations are as active as they are acclaimed—Florence’s bell towers have been reliant on mechanisation for the better part of half a century. Notwithstanding this lack of present-day campanari fiorentini, the melodies found among Florence’s bells, from within clusters of Oltrarno churches to the seven-bell ensemble of Giotto’s campanile, are a palpable ode to the historic importance of routinised bell-ringing. The latter could not have been more indispensable in the lead-up to—and during—Renaissance times. Where modern-day voyagers clutch smartphones as their lifeline in getting from A to B, Florentine citizens in the 14th century were fully dependent on a punctual daily routine of bell-ringing to decipher when they should sleep, when they should work, when they should eat and when they should pray.
Just as Giorgio Vasari’s Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors and Architects gives the most tangible (if often subjective) descriptions of the Early Renaissance’s leading figures, the self-taught poet Antonio Pucci—who was crowned official bell-ringer in Florence in 1334, followed several years later with the title of town-crier—gives unparalleled insight into the pre-modern soundscape of the city. The cacophonies described in one of his best-recognised poems, “La Proprietà del Mercato Vecchio”, conjure up a vivacious retelling of the sounds that make up marketplace life and its surrounding areas. From the heated commercial haggling sessions between consumer and stallholder to amorous serenades and the laughter of playing children, these character-filled streets and market squares nurtured the “flourishing of civic culture”, as has been aptly described by art historian and soundscape cognoscente Niall Atkinson. This fact makes it all the more striking that even in the midst of these ear-deafening acoustics, without exception, all would come to a standstill once the city bells were heard tolling; by far the loudest man-made sound present at the time.
As any pre-industrial government ascending to power in Florence (or any given city) was aware of, the most secure method of exercising control over its people, and minimising civic discord in the process, was to have visible harmony between religious and civic bells. During Pucci’s lifetime, it is said that over 100 churches could be found in the city, each boasting their own individual bell towers and each re-enforcing the importance of Florentine’s parish community, soothing the citizens’ spirits by their declared role of warding off evil presences. However, it was the thundering sound of civic bells, particularly from the towers perched on Palazzo della Signoria and Palazzo del Podestà, which imposed the most reverberant sounds. Unlike the limitations of their religious counterparts, they could be rung using a myriad of aural combinations.
At several internals on a daily basis, the “Leone”, the loudest and largest civil bell, the “Podestà”, the “Popolo” and the “Montanina” would reassure citizens of their presence from dawn until dusk, whether in opening the city courts or bringing the working day to a close. The “Leone” even signalled the evening prayer of
the Ave Maria, thus fortifying the sonic ties between Florence’s political and spiritual cittadini.
With all of this said, perhaps the most unnerving aspect of their power was how, with the simple act of ringing an unheard combination or tolling almost an entirety of city bells at once, the bells could turn from an orderly force clung to by the Florentines to a potent, efficient device for striking fear and panic into the minds of that same population. This was vividly shown through one dramatic wake-up call on 20th July, 1378: the unprecedented clashing of eight church bell towers on both sides of the Arno kicked off the Ciompi Revolt, wherein the isolated, guild-less population of artisans, craftsmen and general labourers rose up to establish the most democratically sound (if ultimately short-lived) government Florence had ever possessed. Though ringing bells of the present day may be unable to reclaim the power they once held, every melodic vibration emitted will see their memory as leader of a once-indestructible acoustic regime forever preserved.
