Campanile

Campanile, bell tower, usually adjacent to a church. The first campaniles appeared in Italy about the 7th century. As in the round campanile of Sant' Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna, Italy, the earliest examples probably contained not bells, but semantra, planks of wood or metal that sounded when struck. In the following century, the square campanile became the standard. The campanile has been revived as an element of modern church architecture.