Little bells and great bells: the sound that drives evil away

Even before they were musical instruments, bells were objects of protection in many cultures. Their clear, sudden sound, able to travel through space and catch the attention, was believed capable of driving away evil spirits, storms and harmful influences. From Roman houses to Japanese temples, from priests' vestments to medieval bell towers, the bell has accompanied the history of lucky charms with its unmistakable voice.

The Roman tintinnabulum

In Rome and in the cities around Vesuvius, tintinnabula were common: bronze chimes made of a central figure from which small bells hung. The figure was often phallic or animal in form, following the logic of the fascinum, which repelled the evil eye with images of vital power. Hung on the doors of houses and shops, tintinnabula rang in the wind or as people passed. Many examples found at Pompeii and Herculaneum are now kept in the National Archaeological Museum of Naples.

Bells were also hung around the necks of animals and sometimes of children, with a function that combined practical use with symbolic protection: a sound made it possible to find whoever had wandered off and, at the same time, kept away what could not be seen. In the ancient world bronze itself enjoyed special prestige, and its resonance was often associated with the presence of the sacred.

The bells on the priest's robe

The Bible too mentions bells with a ritual value. In the Book of Exodus, among the instructions for the high priest's vestments, it is laid down that the hem of the robe be adorned alternately with pomegranates and golden bells, whose sound was to be heard when Aaron entered the sanctuary and when he came out. Jewish and Christian interpreters have read this detail in different ways, connected with the divine presence, respect for the holy place and the protection of the priest himself.

Bells against storms

In the Christian Middle Ages the great bells of church towers received a solemn blessing, and it was believed that their sound drove away lightning, hail and demons of the air. Many bells bore inscriptions declaring this function. A famous formula, inscribed on the bell of Schaffhausen Minster cast in 1486, reads in Latin “Vivos voco, mortuos plango, fulgura frango”: I call the living, I mourn the dead, I break the lightning. Friedrich Schiller chose it as the epigraph of his Song of the Bell.

The ringing of bells during thunderstorms long remained in use in the European countryside, despite the dangers to bell-ringers, who were sometimes struck by lightning in the very towers. In the eighteenth century, with new knowledge of electricity and the invention of the lightning rod, the practice was criticised by scientists and gradually abandoned, although it survived in some rural areas until relatively recent times.

In China and Japan wind bells hang from the corners of pagoda roofs and from the verandas of houses. In Japan the fūrin, a glass or metal bell with a strip of paper swaying in the breeze, is a symbol of summer, and in Buddhist tradition the sound of bells is linked to the purification of sacred spaces. Whether it is a little bell on the collar of a lucky cat or a great bronze bell, sound has always been perceived as something alive, able to protect the space it fills.