A Commentary on Bells

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Original title: De campanis commentarius a F. Angelo Roccha Camers, episcopo Tagastensi et apostolici sacrarii praefecto elucubratus A Latin quarto treatise on church bells arising from a case examined in the Sacred Congregation of Rites and expanded into twenty-six numbered inquiries (Quaesita) arranged according to an announced ordo naturae: the invention of bells, their twelve names (campana, nola, squilla, crotalum, cloca, tintinnabulum, signum and others) with etymologies drawn from Campania and Nola, their pagan and Christian uses, the rites of blessing and consecration set out from the Roman Pontifical, the distinction between authorized benedictio and consecratio and the popular misnomer baptismus campanae, the effects and marvels of consecrated bells (self-ringing bells such as that of Velilla de Ebro, the spontaneous ringing at Saint Paul Outside the Walls in Rome on 24 October 1610, bells sworn upon as reported by Giraldus Cambrensis, bells said to drive off storms), the question of who may lawfully ring — laymen or those in sacred or minor orders — ringing under interdict, the number of bells proper to collegiate and parochial churches, alloys and casting, towers and campanili, clocks and automata including the clock of Saint Mark's in Venice, and carillons such as the thirty-three bells at Antwerp tuned to sound like an organ. It also treats Christian bells typologically as the trumpets of the Church Militant, and contrasts Latin practice with Greek, Turkish, and heretical alternatives. The volume includes supplementary Paralipomena (with excommunication published by bell, book, and candle), an index of cited authors, a subject index, and four folded plates with an explanatory Declaratio. 👉 Read our introductory primer, full report, and finding guide here 📜 View the original source file This text was transcribed and translated as part of the ExLatinis project—an effort by Leo to make English translations of every published text in Latin in early modern Europe (between 1450 and 1750) available to the public for free online.

• Read our introductory primer, full report, and finding guide here
• View the original source file

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