With the U.S. presidential elections just past and Italy’s primaries and national elections on the horizon, voting and the electoral system are on everyone’s mind. A little known fact is that the reputed origin of one of the words most central this political period, ‘ballot,’ lies within a historic building in the centre of Florence.
The story unfolds in the Torre della Castagna, a historic tower that to this day stands in Florence’s piazza San Martino, on the corner of via Dante Alighieri. It predates 1013, when it was given by Emperor Corrado II to the Benedictine monks of the adjacent Badia Fiorentina in order to help with the monastery’s defences. In 1282 the tower became the meeting place of the Priori delle Arti of Florence, an important historic function that is commemorated with a plaque in via Dante Alighieri. The Priori delle Arti was the governing body of the Florentine Republic. Also known as the Signoria, the group later moved to Palazzo Vecchio and gave its name to the square onto which the palazzo overlooks.
Members of the Priori delle Arti were elected for two-month terms, during which time they were not allowed to leave the tower unless in the company of another member, ensuring that all contact with outsiders was monitored to reduce the risk of threats or bribery. The Priori played a very important role in deciding the activities of the Republic, and they did so using a voting system similar to the modern-day ballot. But instead of slipping pieces of paper in a box, the Priori delle Arti used a ubiquitous Tuscan food: the chestnut.
Chestnuts were placed in bags of fabric that indicated the voting preference of each member. Although the chestnuts were later replaced by balls of wax, metal or wood of different colours, they inspired the name of the tower. In Florentine dialect, boiled chestnuts are known as ballotte. It is (allegedly) from this word that the English word ‘ballot,’ is derived.
While Florentines would undoubtedly uphold the Florentine origin of the word ‘ballot’-and this does indeed seem to be the most popular theory-there are many other ideas as to its etymology, ranging from the Germanic word balla, meaning ball, to the Venetian ballota, a ball that was historically used in elections there.
