Until 25 December 2025, visitors will be able to listen to the sound installation The Mute Echoes of a Great Sound Sculpture—The Campanone of St. Peter’s, by American artist Bill Fontana, set up inside St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.
The work, created with the support of the Dicastery for Culture and Education, is one of the masterpieces that have always made the First Basilica of Christianity a place of extraordinary spiritual and cultural value.
Curated by Umberto Vattani and Valentino Catricalà, the installation uses advanced technology to amplify the imperceptible vibrations of St. Peter’s Campanone, transforming them into an immersive sound experience. Thanks to new-generation sensors and a sophisticated system of twelve loudspeakers, visitors are welcomed into the portico of the Basilica by the hidden sounds of the Campanone, a symbol of Christianity.
The work is intended as a message of peace and brotherhood in the context of the 2025 Jubilee. Bill Fontana, a pioneer of sound art, has transformed natural sounds into works of art and, in collaboration with IRCAM in Paris, has made the vibrations of the Campanone audible. For the first time, a contemporary art installation is hosted in the portico of St. Peter’s, transforming the Campanone into a symbol of global dialogue, where silence becomes a universal language of hope and unity among peoples.
The project is promoted by Venice International University—VIU and supported by Enel, FS Italiane Group and Meyer Sound. The installation was also presented in Japan, at Expo Italia 2025 Osaka, inside the Vatican Pavilion in the Italian Pavilion.
Here, visitors were able to immerse themselves in the “silent sound” of St. Peter’s Bell: not the chimes that are heard only three times a year—at Christmas, Easter and the feast of Saints Peter and Paul—but that deep, constant voice that vibrates even when the great bell is silent.
(from the press release)
Bill Fontana, curated by Umberto Vattani and Valentino Catricalà, promoted by Venice International University-VIU, with the support of Enel, FS Italiane Group and Meyer Sound, St. Peter’s Basilica (portico), until 25 December 2025
images (all): Bill Fontana, The Silent Echoes of a Great Sound Sculpture, 2025, Saint Peter’s Basilica, Rome, credits Bill Fontana
Bill Fontana (born 25 April 1947 in Cleveland, Ohio) is an American composer and multimedia artist, internationally recognised for his pioneering experiments in the field of sound art. Since the 1970s, Fontana has used sound as a sculptural medium to interact with and transform the perception of visual and architectural spaces. He has created sound sculptures and radio projects for museums and broadcasting organisations around the world. His works have been exhibited in prestigious institutions such as the Whitney Museum of American Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Museum Ludwig in Cologne, the Post Museum in Frankfurt, the Museums of Art History and Natural History in Vienna, the Tate Modern and Tate Britain in London, the 48th Venice Biennale, the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney, the MAXXI in Rome and the MAAT in Lisbon. Fontana has also created important radio sound art projects for the BBC, the European Broadcasting Union, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, National Public Radio, West German Radio (WDR), Swedish Radio, Radio France and Austrian State Radio. He is currently working on new commissions for the Kunsthaus Graz, the International Renewable Energy Agency and the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale. For Silent Echoes, he worked with recordings made on the surface of the Emmanuel bell of Notre-Dame de Paris, which survived the catastrophic fire in the cathedral in 2019, and with recordings of the vibrations generated by melting ice on the Dachstein glacier in Austria. For further information: resoundings.org.
