{"id":3193,"date":"2024-05-29T12:54:16","date_gmt":"2024-05-29T12:54:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.basilicasanmarco.it\/bell-tower\/the-bells\/"},"modified":"2026-01-16T09:48:59","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T09:48:59","slug":"the-bells","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.basilicasanmarco.it\/en\/bell-tower\/the-bells\/","title":{"rendered":"The Bells"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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The Bells<\/h1>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
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The first news regarding the casting of bells in Venice dates back to the doge Orso Partecipazio (864-881), who sent twelve bells as a gift to the Greek emperor Basil (867-886) as a sign of gratitude for having received the title of Protospatharios<\/i> from him.<\/p><\/div>

The history of its bells is linked to the long series of lightning strikes that, striking the bell tower, caused damage or collapse. Chronicles record their collapse in the fire of 1489; they were recast in 1513, and in 1613, 1731, and 1792 they underwent restoration, casting, and adjustments. <\/p><\/div>

The number of bells also varied over the centuries: in 1489 there were six, but later written records indicate sometimes four, sometimes seven. The basilica’s ceremonial dated 1678 reports that there are five bells, all of which sound excellent. <\/p><\/div>

The most famous, called the Marangona<\/i> , marked midnight and struck every two hours. It also rang one hour after Matins<\/i> . Its name derives from the \u201cmarangoni,\u201d or shipwrights, for whom and every other worker in the Venice Arsenal, it marked the working day by ringing at the beginning and end of each shift. <\/p><\/div>

The Trottiera<\/i> , or after-nons,<\/i> rang half an hour after noon. It also served to gather the members of the Great Council. At its toll, the nobles hastened to the Doge’s Palace at a trot, when horses were still used in Venice. When the bell stopped ringing, the palace doors were closed and no one was allowed to enter. <\/p><\/div>

The Nona<\/i> or Mezzana<\/i> struck the half-hour of the night, midday, and vespers; its chimes also signaled the deadline for sending mail from Rialto.<\/p><\/div>

The Half-Terce<\/i> or Pregadi<\/i> struck the hour during the night and at dawn rang Matins.<\/i> Its chimes signaled the meetings of the Senators, anciently called “Pregadi.”<\/p><\/div>

The smallest was called the Malefizio<\/i> or the Executed<\/i> and was rung for half an hour in the event of death sentences.<\/p><\/div>

A decree of the Great Council of 23 September 1569 ordered that the bell-ringer of San Marco had to be at least 25 years old, be confirmed in the College with the intervention of the heads of the Ten, with 2\/3 votes, and personally carry out his duty.<\/p><\/div>

Life was marked by the sound of bells: they were rung to call the basilica’s canons to their services and the arsenal workers to work. They rang for glory, all together, for both the pope and the doge, for their election and their death, with an equal number of tolls. <\/p><\/div>

The silence of the Marangona<\/i> indicated the rest of the workers, the Trottiera<\/i> was silent for the rest of the legislators in Pregadi.<\/p><\/div>

In 1670, the “Campanon de Candia” arrived in Venice, a possession conquered from the Turks, and was installed in the bell tower only in 1678, on the occasion of the Feast of the Ascension. It apparently had no practical purpose, so it is presumed to have rung rarely; when it fell to the floor of the cell in 1722, no one proposed its restoration, and the bell remained abandoned in a corner. <\/p><\/div>

In 1731, the Procurators of San Marco informed the Doge that the Trottiera<\/i> had broken and the Nona<\/i> needed repairs. On April 19, the small Trottiera,<\/i> dated 1418, was lowered into the square by the arsenal workers, after three hundred and thirteen years of operation. It was recast in the Arsenal by Giovanni Battista Alberghetti, but when placed in the bell tower and rung, it was discovered to be out of tune .<\/i> It was lowered again, brought back to the Arsenal, recast again, and remounted in the bell tower, but it was still found to be out of tune. On January 25, 1732, the Procurator Cassier of San Marco requested in the Senate that the bell be recast once again, in another foundry, but there is no record of this work being carried out. <\/p><\/div>

In 1792 the bell ringer Pavoni reported that the four bells needed new ropes, so the Procurator Cassier Nicol\u00f2 Erizzo ordered the delivery to the Arsenal of 576 pitches of rope of the Mocado schietto incatramata<\/i> quality, but the Arsenal finally delivered the same length of rope, but of a different nature, called menal di gallera<\/i> .<\/p><\/div>

In 1805, the Marangona bell<\/i> was found to be broken, and it was decided to recast it. Domenico Dalla Venezia was entrusted with the task, and was given the “campanon de Candia” and a “small bell” that had not rung for many years, perhaps the small, out-of-tune Trottiera<\/i> cast in the Arsenal. Meanwhile, Austria ceded its power to Napoleon, and work on the bell was halted, only resuming in 1808 at the behest of Patriarch Saverio Gamboni, who ordered Domenico Canciani Dalla Venezia to cast two bells, each twice as large as the other. The two bells, for which many others from destroyed Venetian churches and monasteries had been sacrificed, were installed the following year, but, as they were deemed excessively large, they were dismantled and left on the ground in the belfry. <\/p><\/div>

Since only one bell remained operational to strike the hours, in 1819 it was decided to recast all five. The work was once again entrusted to Dalla Venezia, and the new bells, finally harmonized, began ringing at Easter 1820. <\/p><\/div>

They will fall eighty-two years later, together with the bell tower, on July 14, 1902. Only one of them will be saved, which everyone will call Marangona<\/i> even though it was recast in 1820, which will remain unharmed on top of the rubble, while the other four will be buried by the ruins. <\/p><\/div>

Pope Pius X (1903-1914), born Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto, who had been Patriarch of Venice from June 15, 1893, to August 4, 1903, assumed the cost of recast the four destroyed bells, cast by the Barozzi Brothers. Tested on June 7, 1909, they were inaugurated, along with the new bell tower, on April 25, 1912. <\/p><\/div>

Their sound corresponds to the A chord, namely, A, B, C#, D and E.<\/p><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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The Bells The first news regarding the casting of bells in Venice dates back to the doge Orso Partecipazio (864-881), who sent twelve bells as a [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":3174,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-3193","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.basilicasanmarco.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.basilicasanmarco.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.basilicasanmarco.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.basilicasanmarco.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.basilicasanmarco.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3193"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.basilicasanmarco.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3193\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3210,"href":"https:\/\/www.basilicasanmarco.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3193\/revisions\/3210"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.basilicasanmarco.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.basilicasanmarco.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}