44. The campanile

suono / sound by Stuart Fowkes
foto / image by Stuart Fowkes
indirizzo / address Piazza San Giovanni
data / date 31/12/2013
orario / time Afternoon
durata / duration 00:00:30
ringraziamenti / special thanks to -
commento / user feedback

As a frequent visitor to Italy (visiting my Italian girlfriend's family), I'm drawn most often to the campanile as the icon of Italy for me, so common in every town and village and so rarely seen in the UK. And they're always so beautiful, so for me to see something like the campanile in Venezia, or, as on this occasion, in Firenze, conjures up changing emotions. There's always a sense of awe at the beauty of the building itself, but I realised (only now in writing this for the Firenze sound map) that my emotional response over the years has changed to one of feeling welcomed, feeling warm just by proximity to a campanile and all it represents to me - the piazza, the sense of what Italy IS.

 Stuart Fowkes,  www.citiesandmemory.com