The Bell-Tower Facade: An Aseismic Device in Sicily Between the 12th and 18th Centuries

Imposing tower facades with belfries in the last order were built in Sicily Italy, from the Middle Ages to the late Baroque period. Until the 16th century, this model, which was inspired by northern European examples, also had a parallelepiped forepart leaning against the facade, working as containment for the pressure imparted by the inner longitudinal arches on the front, and amplified in case of earthquakes. The lacking static efficiency of these early structures is demonstrated by collapses during the strong earthquakes that hit the island in the modern age. Despite numerous cases of destruction, the memory of some prototypes survived in Sicilian constructive memory through the elaboration, in the late Baroque, of tower facades with an updated morphology. The hybridization with Guarini’s pyramid scheme, and its related articulations, could in fact offer the tower system advantages in terms of structural strength, thanks to a better balanced redistribution of masses and weights.