On New Year’s Eve fireworks manufacturers the world over were able to relax after their biggest sale of the year. But this day has been a fireworks staple for a surprisingly long time, although the fireworks themselves have changed quite a bit.
Fireworks, as everyone knows, were invented in ancient China. The details of their actual origin are lost to history, but they were probably developed as a way to keep mountain men and spirits at bay using loud bangs. Dried bamboo stalks would emit a noisy crack when thrown on a fire, and gunpowder, another Chinese invention, rammed into bamboo, may have first been used to magnify this startling effect.
By the 11th century there were gunpowder weapons in China and in the early 12th century, the Chinese used firecrackers and fireworks (“yen huo”) to celebrate a visit of the Chinese emperor. Chinese fireworks included rockets (or “earth rats” because they were fired over the ground) and wheels, colored smoke-balls, crackers, and fireworks attached to kites. They all made a glorious noise.
Fireworks in Europe
Gunpowder and fireworks might have been invented independently in Europe, but they probably reached Europe via the Mongols, who spread west from China as far as central Europe by the mid-13th century. In 1267, the English monk Roger Bacon recorded seeing what were very likely firecrackers, which he compared with the flash of lightning and growl of thunder.
In 1377 fireworks accompanied a religious mystery play by the bishop’s palace in Vicenza, and were soon used to add sparks to figures of doves, representing the Holy Spirit, or angels, made to ascend and descend from the heavens on ropes.
By the 15th century, rockets were being used in Europe for military and peaceful purposes. Italian and Spanish cities in particular began to use fireworks for outdoor celebrations. The Italian metallurgist Vannoccio Biringuccio described festivities in Florence and Siena for feast days. These included “girandoles” or whirling decorated wheels packed with fireworks, which were suspended from a rope hung across a street or square.
Fireworks were also used in the German lands. An elaborate color-painted book commemorates the Schembart carnival of Nuremberg, which saw men dressed in brightly colored costumes parading through the town. Often these included some kind of pyrotechnics. One image shows a man wearing a hat in the form of a castle with fireworks and smoke shooting up from the towers, and interestingly, what looks like a smoking artichoke.
