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“Bella Ciao”: The History and Meaning of This Iconic Song

Bella Ciao is without doubt the most well-known Italian song in the world. Born in the rice fields of northern Italy at the beginning of the 20th century, taken up by anti-fascist partisans during the Second World War, then brought to a global audience by the series Money Heist in 2017, it has crossed the decades without losing its power. Understanding its lyrics means stepping into a century of Italian history.

The origins: the mondine of the rice fields

Before it became a song of resistance, Bella Ciao was a song of women’s labour. At the beginning of the 20th century, the mondine worked in the rice fields of the Po Valley. Ten hours a day, backs bent in cold water, exposed to mosquitoes. Their original lyrics, Alla mattina appena alzata, describe that exhausting daily reality.

The melody is thought to derive from a Piedmontese folk song, itself derived from a French ballad of the 15th century. The social struggles of these women led in 1908 to a law limiting the working day to eight hours.

Bella Ciao and the Italian Resistance (1943-1945)

After the Italian armistice of 8 September 1943, German troops occupied the north of the country. Partisans organised themselves in the mountains. Towards the end of 1944, the melody of the mondine was taken up with new lyrics. The song became the anthem of the anti-fascist resistance.

It did not spread immediately. In 1947, Italian students sang it at the World Festival of Youth in Prague. In 1964, a stage show gave it a wide new audience. It gradually established itself because its lyrics, less politically marked than other anti-fascist songs, allowed everyone to make it their own.

The complete lyrics in Italian with translation

Here are the complete lyrics of the partisan version of Bella Ciao, verse by verse, with their English translation:

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The meaning of the chorus: hello or goodbye?

Ciao means both hello and goodbye in Italian. This ambiguity gives the chorus its full depth. In the partisan version, it is a farewell: the fighter says goodbye to his life, to his loved one, to the world. Bella (beautiful) can be addressed to a woman, to the homeland or to freedom itself. This versatility explains why the song has been adopted by such different movements across the world.

Key vocabulary for learning Italian

Bella Ciao is a valuable resource for learners. The lyrics are simple, the pace moderate, and the grammatical structures representative of everyday Italian. It is also a gateway to Italian song more broadly.

In six verses, Bella Ciao illustrates the present perfect with both auxiliaries (essere and avere), the simple future (passeranno, diranno) and the imperative (portami). A condensed Italian grammar lesson set to music.

From the Resistance to a worldwide symbol

Yves Montand popularised Bella Ciao in France in the 1960s. Manu Chao recorded a Spanish version. The Ramoneurs de Menhirs sang it in Breton. It rang out in Farsi during Iranian protests, in Arabic during the Arab Spring.

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In 2017, Money Heist brought Bella Ciao to a new global generation. In 2018, the cover by Maître Gims, Dadju, Slimane and Vitaa turned it into a simple story of a romantic breakup, widely criticised in Italy for straying so far from the original text and context.

The repetitive melody and simple vocabulary make Bella Ciao a song that can be memorised in just a few listens. The chorus returns after each verse, the images are concrete and universal. To make progress in Italian, the approach is straightforward: sing the chorus until it becomes automatic, then work through the verses one by one, identifying the verbs and tenses used.

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