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

opening hours

Monday closed
Tuesday to Sunday 11 am – 7 pm

more information

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. This system 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 Mapping (2014) in the MAXXI piazza from 3 April.

greetings
Emanuela Bruni Fondazione MAXXI Board Member Regent
Alessandro Giuli Minister of Culture
José Tolentino de Mendonça Prefect of the Department for Culture and Education

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, Treccani, Enel, Ferrovie dello Stato, Meyer Sound.

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