Image: Mike Lehmann, Mike Switzerland 13:37, 2 July 2006 (UTC), CC BY-SA 3.0 — via Wikimedia Commons
Zytglogge
Zytglogge
| Category | Percussion |
|---|---|
| Country of origin | Switzerland |
| Classification | astronomical clock, building, carillon, city gate, clock tower, gate tower |
| Wikipedia | en.wikipedia.org |
| Wikidata | Q246105 |
Editorial note: The Zytglogge is a specific historical clock tower and its bell, rather than a generic instrument category. This page treats the bell as the instrument of interest within the larger architectural and horological context. WP publication of this page is recommended subject to CEO review.
Overview
The Zytglogge (“time bell” in Bernese German) is a medieval clock tower in the centre of the old town of Bern, Switzerland. Built originally around 1218–1220 as a city gate, it became a clock tower in the early fifteenth century and has marked the hours over the city ever since. The current bell and astronomical clockwork date from a major rebuilding completed in 1530. The Zytglogge is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site of the Old City of Bern and is one of the most familiar landmarks of the Swiss capital.
Origin & History
The Zytglogge began as the western gate of the small early-thirteenth-century town. As Bern expanded, successive new walls and gates pushed the original gate inward, leaving the structure as a freestanding tower in the middle of the growing city. After damage in the great fire of 1405, the tower was rebuilt as a clock tower, and the major rebuild of the early sixteenth century gave it its present elaborate astronomical clock face on the eastern side, the famous figural automaton beneath it, and the clockwork that drives the bell-striking mechanism.
The mechanical clockwork built by Caspar Brunner between 1527 and 1530 is among the oldest still-functioning clock mechanisms in Europe and remains in operation, although now supplemented by modern timekeeping for accuracy.
The Bell and Its Sound
The bell is a large bronze tower bell, struck on the hour by a hammer driven by the Brunner clockwork. The strike produces a single deep, sustained tone that carries clearly across the surrounding streets of the old town. A small figural automaton beneath the eastern clock face — including a crowing rooster, dancing bears, and a striking jester — performs four minutes before each hour, drawing crowds of visitors year-round.
Cultural Significance
The Zytglogge is one of the central symbols of the city of Bern and a much-photographed landmark of Switzerland. Its bell has marked civic time for the residents of Bern for more than five centuries, and the tower itself stands as a rare surviving example of late-medieval and early-Renaissance urban civic architecture. Albert Einstein lived in an apartment a short walk from the Zytglogge during the years he developed special relativity, and the tower features in many accounts of his daily life in Bern.
Related Pages
- – Japanese Buddhist temple bells of comparable civic and ritual significance
- – the wider European tower-bell tradition
- Bridge of Nations Bell – another single-object historical bell
- Japanese Peace Bell – the UN bell in the Japanese tradition
