[28] Encyclopédie de l'Architecture et de la Construction, article "Clocher," by Ed. Corroyer.
Such towers were very frequently isolated from the body of the church. A large number of Italian churches, dating from all periods of the Middle Ages, have steeples at a considerable distance from the main building.
Force of habit determined the application of the round form to towers of the twelfth century; but it is evident that a square plan was preferred, even so early as the tenth century, and such a form was in course of time rendered necessary by the development of the founder's art, and the increase in the dimensions of bells at the beginning of the twelfth century. Besides the great bells which proclaimed the hour of prayer to a distant flock, small bells were in use to regulate the religious exercises of the clergy. They are called in the Latin texts signum, schilla, nola; in French sin, esquielle, eschelitte; from the beginning of the tenth century they were placed in the campaniles which crowned the domes.
The Italian word campanile has the force of the French terms tour, clocher, beffroi (or the English tower, steeple, belfry). But the denomination clocher has a general application to all pyramidal structures rising above the roof of a church.
The belfry was a tower, in most cases isolated, which contained the bell destined to sound the curfew and tocsin, and to call the burghers to civic assemblies.
Like the belfry, the Italian campanile is generally an isolated building, but it is usually placed in the near neighbourhood of a church. Among the most famous campanili are those of Florence—begun in the fourteenth century, on the plans of Giotto,—of Padua, of Ravenna, and the famous leaning tower of Pisa.
83. STEEPLE, VENDÔME (TWELFTH CENTURY)
In France the term campanile has a more general application, and is given to the little pierced arcaded turrets which, in many churches, crown the walls of the façade and shelter small bells.
