Bill Fontana, Gli echi muti di una grande scultura sonora, 2025, Basilica di San Pietro, Roma/The Silent Echoes of a Great Sound Sculpture, 2025, Saint Peter's Basilica, Rome. Crediti/Credits Bill Fontana
event
Thursday 3 April 2025 11.30 AM

talkThe Silent Echoes of the Great BellA Project by Bill Fontana for St Peter's Basilica

MAXXI auditorium
free admission subject to availability
event in Italian

A conversation based on the book that recounts Fontana’s installation in the heart of Christianity.

With the collaboration of IRCAM in Paris, an international centre of excellence in the field of acoustic and musical research linked to Centre Pompidou, and a team of sound engineers, Bill Fontana recorded the vibrations of the St Peter’s Campanone, making them audible through a system of 12 state-of-the-art loudspeakers placed in the portico of St. Peter’s. The installation, entitled The Silent Echoes of a Great Sound Sculpture, renders every nuance and subtlety, transforming the bell into a ‘sound sculpture’ that communicates peace and hope. The event is also the occasion for the re-installation of Bill Fontana’s sound installation Sonic Mappings (2014) in the MAXXI piazza from 3 April.

greetings
Maria Emanuela Bruni Fondazione MAXXI President
José Tolentino de Mendonça Prefect of the Department for Culture and Education
Massimo Bray Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana General Director

project presentation
Umberto Vattani Venice International University President

speakers
Cesare Biasini Selvaggi writer
Valentino Catricalà co-curator of the project
Monia Trombetta MAXXI Arte interim Director

In collaboration with Venice International University, Enel, Gruppo FS Italiane, Meyer Sound, Treccani.

individual seats reserved for myMAXXI cardholders by writing to mymaxxi@fondazionemaxxi.it, by the day before the event