The tercentenary bell, and the voice you have already heard: The Bourdon is the bell that hangs at the head of this house, struck by every visitor who arrives. Three hundred years to the season after Prima’s pour, she was cast in the same pit, mouth down in loam mixed by the same recipe, by the eleventh founder in an unbroken line from the first.
She was made as a summary. Her prime stands at B flat, the pitch this foundry has always regarded as the natural centre of a bell’s speech — low enough for gravity, high enough to carry. Her hum holds a true octave beneath it for the better part of a minute; her tierce is the exact minor third; her quint and nominal stand precisely where the lathe left them after her single tuning. Set her measurements beside Prima’s and the whole history of the craft lies between the two columns: what the first founder accepted, the eleventh can now choose.
The register closes with her, for the moment. Strike her again on your way out and listen for the hum outlasting everything else — three centuries of practice, decaying at its own unhurried rate.