Mafra – Time, sound and silence *
The German Benedictine monk Anselm Grün views the sound of bells as a profound spiritual symbol, seeing it as a link between the divine and everyday life, one that invites human beings to contemplation, harmony, and presence in the here and now. From his mystical and psychological perspective, the tolling of the bells interrupts the restlessness of the ego to make room for the sacred.
The sound of bells still fascinates us today. It connects heaven and earth and symbolizes a greater harmony. When the bells of a church ring out in a city, another voice becomes audible even amidst the hustle and bustle of everyday life. It is the voice of God, mingling with the human voices.
Even if you don’t have the religious belief, you can feel the spirituality of it.
In Western civilisation, time is marked by bells – they have been the voice of Time. The earliest clocks had no dial – they were linked to bells, striking the hours rather than displaying them. Canonical hours came first; civil, secular hours followed. The mechanisation of timekeeping began as a rather imprecise affair – public tower clocks initially had only one hand, the hour hand. It was only with the improvement
of the mechanisms that the minute hand was added. Anyway, life prior to the Industrial Revolution was much more regulated by the rhythms of the sun – sunrise, noon, sunset and punctuality was a rather vague concept.
Let me tell you this anecdote, which offers some insight into the mindset of the time and the quality of the clock mechanisms that were gradually becoming part of everyday life in Portugal:
Around 1552, a nobleman was talking with King João III, at the Paço da Ribeira, along with some courtiers, when the clock on the chapel tower struck eleven.
‘Eleven o’clock! Already! That can’t be!’ exclaimed the monarch, adding immediately afterward, ‘What a great liar our clock has turned out to be!’ Said the nobleman: ‘Does Your Highness want it to tell the truth? Then order it removed from the Palace.’”
It is interesting to note that the very etymology of the words reveals the connection between the bell and the clock. “Clock” derives from “cloche,” “clocca,” “Glocke”— all meaning “bell.” The association between clocks and bells would come to form an inseparable relationship.
The Christianization of the bell profoundly transformed medieval society, creating a new sound landscape and a new temporal framework. The construction of time and its perception through the sound of bells gradually took hold, giving the bell a central role in the liturgy, but also at the daily life.
A Portuguese friar, Friar Pantaleão de Aveiro, wrote *Itinerário da Terra Santa* in 1583, after his return to Portugal. The document is available online on the website of the National Library of Portugal.
I don’t think this has been translated yet, but it will be of interest to anyone studying the history of the bell and everything related to the sound of time.
Pantaleão de Aveiro notes that bells are absent from the daily religious life of Islam, that muezzins replace bells with their calls to prayer and their way of marking the time for their communities, and that mechanical clocks are prohibited—only sundials may be used.
Western civilization is the civilization of the bell, with a geographical gap where bells are not found again until one reaches China or Japan.
In the medieval cities of Europe—first manually, then mechanically, linked to clock mechanisms—bells signalled the curfew for the general population and the opening and closing of the gates to neighbourhoods inhabited by minority groups, such as Jews and Muslims.
The defining landmark of King João V’s reign is, of course, the Convent of Mafra. Built between 1717 and 1750 to fulfil the king’s vow to construct it upon the birth of an heir, the architectural complex at Mafra is breathtaking in its grandeur: 11 chapels, 45 galleries, 6 large organs, 21 marble altarpieces, 40 large statues imported from Italy, 880 halls and rooms, 300 cells, 4,500 doors and windows, 154 staircases, and 29 parks spread across a covered area totalling an impressive 37,790 square meters.
Designed by the German-Italian architect João Frederico Ludovice, the convent was entrusted to 12 Franciscan monks, who received supplies and money from the Crown as if there were 300 of them. King João V spared no expense, aiming to surpass the Spanish royal palace at El Escorial.
José Saramago, winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Literature, uses Mafra and the construction process of the complex as the setting for one of his best-known works—*Memorial do Convento*.
In Mafra, there is a silent time — a sundial, which was used to set the clocks on the two towers; a meridian line, which served to mark the solstices or assist with other astronomical observations.
On one of the west-facing terraces there is a sundial, consisting of a cube made of lioz stone with four engraved faces for measuring time. It features three vertical sundials (one for the south, one for the east, and one for the west) and, at the top, a horizontal sundial. It lacks the gnomons.
This sundial is an integral part of the building’s structure, so it dates from around 1730 or shortly thereafter. Its function was essential for setting the other clocks and, above all, for determining the solar zenith, to mark the beginning of the canonical hour “Sexta,” corresponding to noon.
The meridian line at the National Palace of Mafra is the largest in Portugal, located in a specific room within the monument called the Casa da Meridiana. Marked on the floor, this astronomical instrument was used to determine solstices, equinoxes, zodiacal transits, and, most importantly, the exact dates of Easter celebrations (since the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD, it was established that Easter always falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon that occurs on or immediately after the spring equinox (March 21). So, the meridian line works as an annual calendar. On the adjacent balcony, there are holes where a rod was once secured, casting a shadow onto the line on the floor—the so-called gnomon.
But Mafra has also a sounding time – the clocks that the convent/palace displays on its façade. One has a twelve-hour dial, the other a six-hour one. One for civil time, the other for liturgical time.
How was the dialogue between the two clocks like? It was supposed to follow strict rules, with religious time always taking precedence over secular time on special occasions – such as during Holy Week, ‘silencing’ it.
In any case, Mafra’s Baroque era was a very musical time, with a cacophony of bells, chimes, carillons, cylinders and music boxes filling the daily life of the building and people living in the surrounding area.
Let me tell you about another important document for those who study mechanical music and its relationship with Time. Also available online at the National Library of Portugal, it deserves to be translated.
"Altissonância Sacra Restaurada" is an important historical treatise on the practice of bellringing in 18th-century Lisbon. Written by Father António Rodrigues Lages, the manuscript details the rules, methods, and liturgical ceremonies of the two towers at the Paço da Ribeira, the royal palace, in Lisbon, shortly before the 1755 earthquake.
To date, we have not discovered a similar set of regulations for the clock towers complex of Mafra, but the rules should be like those of the capital.
Clock tower
“The clock ceased to strike the hours only during Holy Week, from the moment the bells of the tower of the Patriarchal Church rang out the Gloria of the Mass on Holy Thursday, silencing all other bells, until they resumed with the Alleluia on Saturday.” The secular hours fell silent during the Passion. The same must have been true in Mafra.
The Mafra Palace stands as a remarkable testament to the coexistence of different timekeeping systems. As I have already mentioned, the North Tower houses a liturgical clock that marks 6 hours, while the South Tower boasts a civil 12-hour clock. Both with only one hand, the hour hand.
At the memorial service in honour of King João V in Seville, Spain, Afonso Texedor, the priest of the city’s Patriarchal Church, said of the palace’s clocks and bells: “the profusion of bells, the clock with its ever-flowing melody, the six organs of the Temple, and other symbols of power.” Time and power—an enduring connection.
The sumptuousness and grandeur of Mafra, a monument “greater than Portugal,” has always drawn criticism. The best-known anecdote recounts that, upon learning the price of one of the clocks, King João V is said to have replied: “That cheap!? I’ll take two!” However, that makes no sense at all—each of the towers has clocks with different functions, and the architectural plan called for two towers.
In 1760, the Italian writer Giuseppe Baretti (1716–1789) visited Portugal and went to Mafra. In a letter sent to his brothers, he describes: “The clock mechanisms occupy a very vast room and consist of an innumerable quantity of wheels, supports, springs, rods, and iron levers, as well as other intricate parts, capable of bewildering even the most skilled clockmaker. And the money that such mechanisms cost the king, and the mental effort the craftsman expended to invent them, were undoubtedly great; but the effect is not commensurate with the cause; and, in my view, it was absurd and ridiculous to squander such expense and such deliberation merely to set in motion hammers and striking mechanisms that produce such meagre and trivial music.”
At the South Tower (numbered from I to XII), besides the bells of the hours, the cylinders were activated every quarter and on the hour, playing a minuet.
The clock in the north tower, known as the Roman or Italian clock, “kept time” for only six hours. When it struck the hours, it first played “a grand symphony,” with the melody for even hours differing from that for odd hours. The Roman clock, which is extremely rare, is the only one of its kind in Portugal. It marks the Canonical Hours: Matinas, Prima (Laudes), Tertia (09h), Sexta (12h), Noa (15h), Vesperas, Completas
The complex carillons / clocks of Mafra celebrates the growth in the social importance of public music in European cities of that era.
The two carillons served various functions, requiring constant maintenance and repair. In addition to concerts to entertain the Royal Family, they were also used to announce various events, such as births, baptisms, weddings, the arrival of distinguished guests, among other events.
These structures, approximately 50 meters high, house extraordinary and complex 18th-century clockwork. Even though they are housed inside the towers and cannot be seen from the outside, the clocks possess a unique beauty, since, in addition to the iron mechanism itself, they are richly decorated with bronze sculptures. The Baroque style abhorred emptiness.
This is the current situation of the clocks in the bell towers, according to information provided to us by the monument’s management:
The clock in the north tower is operated manually, while the one in the south tower operates automatically (following its restoration). Both ring the corresponding hour bells in each tower and can also activate the mechanical carillon, which consists of four bronze cylinders (“music box”) connected to the bells by steel cables that run through all the floors of the towers.
Although the clocks are very similar in terms of their mechanisms and operation, they have some distinctive features that set them apart.
The clock in the north tower is a liturgical clock, with the first hour set to coincide with sunrise. The clock mechanism drives three hammers for the hour bells, and two drums for the automatic carillon. They operate by the force of gravity. Once wound, each rope/counterweight provides approximately 12 hours of operation. Therefore, to keep the clock running continuously, it must be wound twice a day.
Winding the clock requires some effort, given the number of turns needed to wind all the counterweights—more than a thousand turns of the crank. As for its state of preservation, although it is not currently in operation, it is, on the whole, in good condition and, due to few interventions throughout its history and limited use, remains practically in its original state.
The clock in the south tower has a twelve-hour dial and underwent restoration in the 1990s; it has more features than the one in the north tower.
It consists of the clock mechanism that drives the three hammers striking the hour bells, plus two drums for the automatic carillon. Simultaneously with the striking of the hours, the carillon system is automatically activated. Each hour strike is followed by the playing of a melody.
The melodies of the automatic carillon can be programmed by changing the pins placed in the drums. There are records of changes to the melodies throughout history.
The system of ropes and counterweights for the south tower clock was automated by installing a motor on each counterweight pulley, while still maintaining gravity-driven operation.
This automation allowed the clock in the south tower to operate continuously without the need for human intervention, although the system itself requires constant inspection and maintenance.
The clock in the north tower remained manually operated and therefore will function only sporadically.
In addition to the complex clockwork and bell mechanisms in the towers, the convent/palace had other means of regulating time. However, in these cases, the bells were rung manually.
In the infirmary, for example, there was a dedicated bell that announced the arrival of the doctor, the surgeon, or the nurse, at different times, as well as the start of patients attendance — each with a different number of chimes. One of them rang when one of the friars was near death.
Even today, there are three tall-case clocks in the palace, purchased during the reign of King João V and crafted by the English clockmaker William Trippett.
In 1843, the *Revista Universal Lisbonense* reported, in a light-hearted tone, that plans were being considered to move the south tower’s clock, along with its bells, to the new Arco da Rua Augusta, still under construction, noting the state of neglect to which the Mafra complex had been consigned.
The sound identity, the desacralization of time and space, the replacement of the sound of bells with factory sirens, and the silence of the bells. The city noise.
The sound of bells and the emotion it evokes help shape the territorial identity of those who hear it.
At canonical hours, the blessed bell imposes a sound space that corresponds to a certain conception of territoriality. Each bell has a range of action—a space with a centre and peripheries—invoking slow rhythms closer to nature.
At civil hours, the regulation of time is rational. The conflicts arising from the municipal clock in contrast to the church or monastery clock—the conflicts between the sacred and the profane, the religious and the civil—are gradually resolved in favour of the former, imposing a neutral time.
Does Mafra, with its two towers—side by side, the sacred and the profane, in a formal and sonic dialectic—symbolize a bygone era?
Nobody needs clocks or watches nowadays to know what time it is. The mobile phone is the new pocket watch.
Let’s talk more about patrimony, culture, community. We are now at a Global Synchronicity era—everything is happening at the same time, everywhere, and we are witnessing it—Mafra and its time must work in all its dimensions. Where the sound of the bells, liturgical and civil, the hands of its clocks, not only tell the time but transports us to a sense of belonging.
* Fernando Correia de Oliveira. Comunicação final no World Carillon Congress, organizado pela World Carillon Federation, no Palácio Nacional de Mafra, no domingo, 28 de Junho de 2026
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