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> Virtual visits of the Basilica: VR1, VR2 y VR3
A Curiosity: the Clock and Bells of Loyola.
The clock of Loyola strikes the hours and half-hours with the bells of the Basilica’s belfry, is radio-regulated and absolutely exact.
One of the bells was smelted in 1738, the year when the church was inaugurated, and christened St Aloysius Gonzaga, strikes the half-hours, and is the one with the lower tone.
Quite old, too, is the one that the chronicles call “the church’s main bell”; it has a 113 cm. diameter and was christened “St Francis Xavier, Apostle of the Indies.” Besides this title it bears the inscription: ET VERBUM CARO FACTUM EST. It was smelted and placed in 1760; it is the one that strikes the full hours.
This latter bell is also the one that at twelve o’clock noon strikes “the nine bells in series of three”, instituted by the Lord of Loyola and St Ignatius’s brother, Martin García de Oñaz, prompted by Iñigo (who was in Azpeitia in 1535 and renounced to his part of the inheritance for the purpose), in order to remind the people to pray “for those who are in mortal sin and not to fall into it themselves”; these bells should be rung, according to the will of the founders, “at noon till the end of the world”, in the parish of Azpeitia and the ten chapels within its boundaries.
Thus, the sound of these old bells is an echo continuously coming to us from Iñigo and the old Society.
When the first bell, the one called St Aloysius Gonzaga, was placed in 1738, Father Francis Retz was General of the Society (1730-1750); Fr Francisco Rávago was the Provincial of Castile(1737-1740); and Fr Juan Escon was the Rector of Loyola (1734-1740).
In between the smelting of the two bells (1738-1760) two Generals guided the Society: Fathers Ignazio Visconti (1751-1755) and Luigi Centurione (1755-1757).
In 1760, when the second bell, “St Francis Xavier”, was smelted, christened and hanged, Charles III had begun his reign (1759-1788), Lorenzo Ricci was Jesuit General (1758-1773), Fr Eugenio Colmenares was Provincial of Castile (1758-1761), and Fr Fernando Ibáñez Rector of Loyola (1748-1763).
Black clouds were already gathering over the horizon of the Society of Jesus both in Spain and the world at large. |
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| St Ignatius of Loyola looks towards Azpeitia |
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| St Aloysius Gonzaga strikes the hour-quarters |
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| St Francis Xavier strikes the hours |
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