What is Campanilismo?
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By Dion Protani
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Latest update: 20 October 2023
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The phrase campanilismo comes from the Italian word for bell tower: campanile and is in essence a sense of pride for one's home town. It's fairly normal when you put it in those terms and can be likened in many ways to an affinity one might have for a sports team of which you're classed as a supporter or fan.
There are some subtle differences however between the love you might show for say a football team than you do for your town. In fact, there are many towns in the world that aren't particularly attractive and it's often the case that those who live in such a place can be critical of it or indeed want to move away. If an "outsider" should join in the criticism it wouldn't necessarily cause offence. |
Saint Mark's Bell Tower, Venice
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This is perhaps the starting point of where we find the difference between the Italian campanilismo and the feeling one might have for the place they live in other parts of the world.
Let's just take a look at the word again: so we know that campanilismo comes from campanile which means bell tower but why that word in particular? It should be remembered that Italy the country has only been officially titled as that since 1861; the process of reunification called the Risorgimento was the final act in a long series of political upheavals to have taken place on the Italian peninsula since the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 AD.
Whilst Italy the nation is relatively young, the towns and cities within it are decidedly old with thousands of years worth of tradition and development behind them in some cases. To understand why we have campanilismo now, we first need to understand what the Italian peninsula looked like before the Risorgimento.
It seems strange to think, but the Italian peninsula was for many years divided up into lots of smaller nations, republics, duchies and kingdoms, often warring with each other. The medieval period saw the emergence of Italian city states such as Florence, Milan, Venice and Genoa which would then control the territory immediately surrounding them. They may have formed political or defensive alliances with some while officially being at war with others.
The Italian landscape, perhaps more so than any other European country, is peppered with hill towns of varying sizes that developed under the political backdrop of the medieval period and the warring, often neighbouring states and republics. The hill towns with their topographical features provided a form of defence at a time when sieges or attacks were relatively commonplace, certainly compared to the situation in modern times.
At the heart of the layout of those hill towns was the need to provide defensive structures with the most common of those being an outer wall with a gate that was locked overnight. Comings and goings were strictly monitored and anyone deemed dangerous or suspicious would most likely have been refused entry.
The campanile or bell tower was often seen as a symbol of a town which goes some way to explaining the phrase campanilismo. In times of emergency the church bell may have been rung from the tower or it could also have been used to bring happier tidings. The Romanesque period of architecture between 1000 - 1200 AD generally saw the main church or cathedral being built in the town square with a separate, free-standing bell tower built next to it, meaning it was always at the centre of daily life.
Campanilismo can be viewed in either a negative or a positive sense: on the negative side you may say that it breeds a mistrust of strangers while the flip-side to that may be an increased sense of civic pride. The reason that it's so strongly felt in Italy is that for hundreds of years, the country was fragmented politically and it wasn't until relatively recently that its transport infrastructure was developed enough to connect one city to another. It took a long time for Italy to catch up with other European nations in terms of road building, notwithstanding the amazing legacy from the Romans in this regard.
A result of the underdeveloped road system was that journeys between one town or city state and another were relatively rare and fraught with danger when they were undertaken; often requiring an armed escort or to at least travel with the safety of numbers. This is really the essence of campanilismo, hundreds of years of tradition whereby it would be rare to travel away from the town you lived in, to view neighbouring towns as potential enemies and to perhaps have a narrow view of what may be happening in those other locations.
Why should it still be the case now when roads have been around for a long time and it's easy to travel around the country? Well, this is a very valid point and it's noticeable that in modern times, that sense of campanilismo applies to a lesser degree in some of the bigger cities such as Milan or Rome. However, we still have those hundreds of smaller cities and hill towns, often beautifully-preserved with the medieval architecture at their core. The residents of this town are usually families that have lived there for many generations which has helped to preserve the traditions, local dialects, political views and culture in general.
One of the most attractive features of a visit to Italy is to sample the food and even here we find an element of campanilismo. Italian food is quite different from region to region with recipes jealously guarded and outside influences being shunned as unworthy. It's very unusual to find cuisine from another country in the smaller Italian towns: certainly no to the extent found in the UK or Germany for example where the likes of Chinese and Indian food is so popular.
Italian cooks have a tendency to believe the way they prepare food is the right way and are often critical of recipes from another region or town. Again we see a positive and a negative side to this: a reluctance to try new things coupled with a great way of maintaining traditional cooking methods. Whichever way you look at this, Italian food is hugely popular with foreign tourists so perhaps they've got that bit right!
Let's just take a look at the word again: so we know that campanilismo comes from campanile which means bell tower but why that word in particular? It should be remembered that Italy the country has only been officially titled as that since 1861; the process of reunification called the Risorgimento was the final act in a long series of political upheavals to have taken place on the Italian peninsula since the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 AD.
Whilst Italy the nation is relatively young, the towns and cities within it are decidedly old with thousands of years worth of tradition and development behind them in some cases. To understand why we have campanilismo now, we first need to understand what the Italian peninsula looked like before the Risorgimento.
It seems strange to think, but the Italian peninsula was for many years divided up into lots of smaller nations, republics, duchies and kingdoms, often warring with each other. The medieval period saw the emergence of Italian city states such as Florence, Milan, Venice and Genoa which would then control the territory immediately surrounding them. They may have formed political or defensive alliances with some while officially being at war with others.
The Italian landscape, perhaps more so than any other European country, is peppered with hill towns of varying sizes that developed under the political backdrop of the medieval period and the warring, often neighbouring states and republics. The hill towns with their topographical features provided a form of defence at a time when sieges or attacks were relatively commonplace, certainly compared to the situation in modern times.
At the heart of the layout of those hill towns was the need to provide defensive structures with the most common of those being an outer wall with a gate that was locked overnight. Comings and goings were strictly monitored and anyone deemed dangerous or suspicious would most likely have been refused entry.
The campanile or bell tower was often seen as a symbol of a town which goes some way to explaining the phrase campanilismo. In times of emergency the church bell may have been rung from the tower or it could also have been used to bring happier tidings. The Romanesque period of architecture between 1000 - 1200 AD generally saw the main church or cathedral being built in the town square with a separate, free-standing bell tower built next to it, meaning it was always at the centre of daily life.
Campanilismo can be viewed in either a negative or a positive sense: on the negative side you may say that it breeds a mistrust of strangers while the flip-side to that may be an increased sense of civic pride. The reason that it's so strongly felt in Italy is that for hundreds of years, the country was fragmented politically and it wasn't until relatively recently that its transport infrastructure was developed enough to connect one city to another. It took a long time for Italy to catch up with other European nations in terms of road building, notwithstanding the amazing legacy from the Romans in this regard.
A result of the underdeveloped road system was that journeys between one town or city state and another were relatively rare and fraught with danger when they were undertaken; often requiring an armed escort or to at least travel with the safety of numbers. This is really the essence of campanilismo, hundreds of years of tradition whereby it would be rare to travel away from the town you lived in, to view neighbouring towns as potential enemies and to perhaps have a narrow view of what may be happening in those other locations.
Why should it still be the case now when roads have been around for a long time and it's easy to travel around the country? Well, this is a very valid point and it's noticeable that in modern times, that sense of campanilismo applies to a lesser degree in some of the bigger cities such as Milan or Rome. However, we still have those hundreds of smaller cities and hill towns, often beautifully-preserved with the medieval architecture at their core. The residents of this town are usually families that have lived there for many generations which has helped to preserve the traditions, local dialects, political views and culture in general.
One of the most attractive features of a visit to Italy is to sample the food and even here we find an element of campanilismo. Italian food is quite different from region to region with recipes jealously guarded and outside influences being shunned as unworthy. It's very unusual to find cuisine from another country in the smaller Italian towns: certainly no to the extent found in the UK or Germany for example where the likes of Chinese and Indian food is so popular.
Italian cooks have a tendency to believe the way they prepare food is the right way and are often critical of recipes from another region or town. Again we see a positive and a negative side to this: a reluctance to try new things coupled with a great way of maintaining traditional cooking methods. Whichever way you look at this, Italian food is hugely popular with foreign tourists so perhaps they've got that bit right!
