Campanile San Tommaso Verona

A bell tower is a tower that contains one or more bells, or that is designed to hold bells even if it has none. Such a tower commonly serves as part of a Christian church, and will contain church bells, but there are also many secular bell towers, often part of a municipal building, an educational establishment, or a tower built specifically to house a carillon. Church bell towers often incorporate clocks, and secular towers usually do, as a public service.

The term campanile (, also , ), deriving from the Italian ''campanile'', which in turn derives from ''campana'', meaning "bell", is synonymous with ''bell tower''; though in English usage campanile tends to be used to refer to a free standing bell tower. A bell tower may also in some traditions be called a belfry, though this term may also refer specifically to the substructure that houses the bells and the ringers rather than the complete tower.

The tallest free-standing bell tower in the world, high, is the Mortegliano Bell Tower, in the Friuli Venezia Giulia region, Italy.

Purpose

File:Elizabeth Tower 2014-09-21 205MP.jpg, Elizabeth Tower, London completed in 1859; better known as Big Ben.
File:Moscow SpasskayaTower D22.jpg, Spasskaya Tower, Moscow Kremlin, built in 1491, is one of the oldest in Europe.
File:Italy - Pisa - Leaning Tower.jpg, The Leaning Tower of Pisa, campanile of the Duomo di Pisa, Italy.
File:Venezia - Panorama 010, Campanile San Marco.jpg, St Mark's Campanile, Venice.

Bells are rung from a tower to enable them to be heard at a distance. Church bells can signify the time for worshippers to go to church for a communal service, and can be an indication of the fixed times of daily Christian prayer, called the canonical hours, which number seven and are contained in breviaries. They are also rung on special occasions such as a wedding, or a funeral service. In some religious traditions they are used within the liturgy of the church service to signify to people that a particular part of the service has been reached.

A bell tower may have a single bell, or a collection of bells which are tuned to a common scale. They may be stationary and chimed, rung randomly by swinging through a small arc, or swung through a full circle to enable the high degree of control of English change ringing. They may house a carillon or chimes, in which the bells are sounded by hammers connected via cables to a keyboard. These can be found in many churches and secular buildings in Europe and America including college and university campuses.

A variety of electronic devices exist to simulate the sound of bells, but any substantial tower in which a considerable sum of money has been invested will generally have a real set of bells.

Some churches have an exconjuratory in the bell tower, a space where ceremonies were conducted to ward off weather-related calamities, like storms and excessive rain. The main bell tower of the Cathedral of Murcia has four.

In Christianity, many churches ring their church bells from belltowers three times a day, at 9 am, 12 pm and 3 pm to summon the Christian faithful to recite the Lord’s Prayer; the injunction to pray the Lord's prayer thrice daily was given in ''Didache'' 8, 2 f., which, in turn, was influenced by the Jewish practice of praying thrice daily found in the Old Testament, specifically in , which suggests "evening and morning and at noon", and , in which the prophet Daniel prays thrice a day. The early Christians thus came to pray the Lord's Prayer at 9 am, 12 pm and 3 pm; as such, in Christianity, many Lutheran and Anglican churches ring their church bells from belltowers three times a day: in the morning, at noon and in the evening calling Christians to recite the Lord’s Prayer. Many Catholic Christian churches ring their bells thrice a day, at 6a.m., noon, and 6p.m., to call the faithful to recite the Angelus, a prayer recited in honour of the Incarnation of God. Oriental Orthodox Christians, such as Copts and Indians, use a breviary such as the Agpeya and Shehimo to pray the canonical hours seven times a day while facing in the eastward direction; church bells are tolled, especially in monasteries, to mark these seven fixed prayer times (cf. ).

The Christian tradition of the ringing of church bells from a belltower is analogous to Islamic tradition of the adhan (call to prayer) from a minaret.

Old bell towers which are no longer used for their original purpose may be kept for their historic or architectural value, though in countries with a strong campanological tradition they often continue to have the bells rung.

History

Europe

In 400 AD, Paulinus of Nola introduced church bells into the Christian Church. By the 11th century, bells housed in belltowers became commonplace.

Historic bell towers exist throughout Europe. The Irish round towers are thought to have functioned in part as bell towers. Famous medieval European examples include Bruges (Belfry of Bruges), Ypres (Cloth Hall, Ypres), Ghent (Belfry of Ghent). Perhaps the most famous European free-standing bell tower, however, is the so-called "Leaning Tower of Pisa", which is the campanile of the Duomo di Pisa in Pisa, Italy. In 1999 thirty-two Belgian belfries were added to the UNESCO's list of World Heritage Sites. In 2005 this list was extended with one Belgian and twenty-three Northern French belfries and is since known as ''Belfries of Belgium and France''. Most of these were attached to civil buildings, mainly city halls, as symbols of the greater power the cities in the region got in the Middle Ages; a small number of buildings not connected with a belfry, such as bell towers of—or with their—churches, also occur on this same list
details
. In the Middle Ages, cities sometimes kept their important documents in belfries. Not all are on a large scale; the "bell" tower of Katúň, in Slovakia, is typical of the many more modest structures that were once common in country areas. Archaic wooden bell towers survive adjoining churches in Lithuania and as well as in some parts of Poland.

In Orthodox Eastern Europe bell ringing also have a strong cultural significance (Russian Orthodox bell ringing), and churches were constructed with bell towers (see also List of tall Orthodox Bell towers).

China

Bell towers (Chinese: '' Zhonglou'', Japanese: ''Shōrō'') are common in China and the countries of related cultures. They may appear both as part of a temple complex and as an independent civic building, often paired with a drum tower, as well as in local church buildings. Among the best known examples are the Bell Tower (''Zhonglou'') of Beijing and the Bell Tower of Xi'an.

Gallery

File:MuugaMõisaKellatorn.jpg, Bell tower in the Muuga village of the Vinni Parish, Lääne-Viru County, Estonia
File:Catholic Church of St. Peter and St. Paul 聖伯多祿與聖保祿天主堂 - panoramio.jpg, Bell tower of the monastery of St. Peter and Paul, in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina
File:Torre de la Catedral de Teruel.JPG, Bell tower of Teruel Cathedral, at Teruel, (Spain).
File:KansasCampanile.jpg, The Campanile at the University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas (1950)
File:Todaiji shoro.jpg, Old Belfry of Tōdai-ji, Japan (752, rebuilt 1200)
File:Round tower, Glendalough.jpg, An Irish round tower, bell tower, at Glendalough, Ireland, c. 900 AD
File:Katunbelltower.JPG, Primitive bell tower at Katúň, Slovakia (≈12th century)
File:Korte-Nieuwstraat Domtoren Utrecht Nederland.JPG, The ''Domtoren'', bell tower of the St. Martin's Cathedral, Utrecht, Netherlands (13th century)
File:FeockChurchBell-tower.jpg, Separate bell tower at Feock Church, Cornwall (13th century)
File:St Medard's bells.jpg, Inside the belfry of St Medard & St Gildard's, in Little Bytham in Lincolnshire, England (13th century)
File:Beijingbelltower2.jpg, Beijing Bell Tower (1272, reconstructed 1420, 1800)
File:The Bell Tower of Xi'an.JPG, Bell Tower of Xi'an (1384)
File:Aalst belfry.jpg, Belfry of Aalst, Belgium (1460)
File:Zoravar Belfry.JPG, The belfry of Surb Zoravor church in Yerevan, Armenia (1693)
File:Kievo-Pecherska Lavra Belltower.jpg, Great Lavra Bell Tower of Kyiv Pechersk Lavra, Ukraine (1745)
File:16 21 0429 carmel mission.jpg, Bell tower at Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo (1797)
File:Belfort Brugge.jpg, Belfry of Bruges, Belgium (1240) (modified 1480s, 1820)
File:Vanha kirkko 1.JPG, Belfry of Tampere Old Church, Finland (1828)
File:Bell Tower, Church of the Good Shepherd (Rosemont, Pennsylvania).jpg, Bell Tower, Church of the Good Shepherd (Rosemont, Pennsylvania) (1894)
File:CampanileMtTamalpiasSunset-original.jpg, Sather Tower (more commonly known as "The Campanile"), Berkeley, CA (1914)
File:Lille, Belfry.JPG, Belfry of Lille, France (1921)
File:Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisana - panoramio (44).jpg, Memorial Tower at Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana (1923)
File:University of Northern Iowa Campanile 4-13-18.jpg, Campanile at the University of Northern Iowa (1927)
File:Bok Tower.png, The Singing Tower at Bok Tower Gardens, Lake Wales, FL (1929)
File:UT Tower - Main Building.JPG, Main Building (University of Texas at Austin), Austin, TX (1937)
File:Rainbow Carillon Tower.jpg, alt=A The Rainbow Carillon Tower., Rainbow Tower, Niagara Falls, Canada (1947)
File:Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Washington.jpg, Campanile at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Washington, D.C., paid for by the Knights of Columbus; known as "The Knight's Tower". (1959)
File:Ucr-belltower.jpg, The bell tower at University of California, Riverside, Riverside, CA (1960s)
File:Petropolis-Cathedral6.jpg, The bell tower of the Cathedral of Petrópolis, Brazil (1960s)
File:Addleshaw tower.jpg, The Addleshaw Tower of Chester Cathedral, England (1973–74)
File:BYUclarillon.jpg, Brigham Young University Centennial Carillon Tower, Provo, Utah (1975)
File:Swan Bells SMC 2006.jpg, ' Swan Bells', Perth, Western Australia (2000)

See also

*Bell-gable
*Clock tower
* Conjuratory
*Octagon on cube
*Zvonnitsa

References and notes

External links

Belfries of Belgium and France
UNESCO World Heritage Centre entry
Les Beffrois - France, Belgique, Pays-Bas
blog describing several bell towers (in French)
All Saints Bell Tower

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