The Republic of Sound: Listening to Florence at the Threshold of the Renaissance

Abstract

Such a strategy, I believe, was a way of harnessing the power of the ringing of bells, already deeply ingrained in the Christian sacred soundscape, to unite and assemble people, to eradicate differences, and to harmonize the conflicts between institutions and communities. This was in stark contrast to the urban strategies of popular regimes to reorganize the city spatially through new political jurisdictions, the demolition of defensive towers, the creation of public thoroughfares, and the exclusionary laws suffered by magnates that deprived them of access to political office.36 Instead of such antagonistic urban strategies, the soundscape developed by the Florentine government formed part of a plan to create the appearance of a harmonic regime of inclusiveness. It was a subtle, syncopated rhythm that respected the sacred marking of time and prayer, giving a distinct acoustic imprint to various times when, and spaces in which, these tasks were performed. It was also characterized by a shared orchestration of sacred and secular activities (fig. 7). It was the Badia that marked the hours of prayer and the beginning of the workday, but it was a civic bell, the Leone, that rang the triple sequence of the evening prayer of the Ave Maria, sonically binding a political community to a spiritual one. The message of the acoustic regime was one of harmony and unity between bodies in space, whose movements were the building blocks of an urban ideal of social peace.Figure 7. Bell towers of the Bargello (left), Badia (center), and the Palazzo Vecchio (right). (Photo: Sean Nelson).