The acoustical survival of San Vitale, Ravenna, Italy through two millennia

Abstract

The musical heritage of Western Europe has early roots in 6th century Italy, during Ostrogothic and subsequent Byzantine rule established in 540 at Ravenna. Only a very few examples of 6th century architectural spaces are extant. Among them, the basilica of Santa Sofia in Constantinople (transformed into a mosque in the sixteenth century), and that of San Vitale in Ravenna, remain the primary representative buildings of Late Antiquity. From at least the 6th century to the liturgical reforms of Pope Gregory the Great (c.540-604), the Christians of Ravenna practiced their own rite and chant tradition suited for the churches of the city including San Vitale. One chant (versus) of the Ravennate rite in particular is appropriate for this church: Lux de luce Deus tenebris illuxit Averni. In order to reconstruct the original environment in San Vitale in the 6th century, after a campaign of acoustic measurements, a numerical model of the church was properly calibrated, in which the binaural and b-format impulse responses were obtained and compared with those gathered in the experiment. A photo-realistic 3D model of the church was realized with the addition of window glass and candlelight. The original Ravennate versus, Lux de luce Deus tenebris illuxit Averni, was recorded in the large anechoic room at the ISVR, University of Southampton, UK. The acoustic rendering of the church, both of the 6th and 21st centuries, was obtained by means of the stereo - dipole and Ambisonics systems. The dry chant was utilized during the auralisation process, and convolved both with the numerical and experimental 3D IRs. Finally, the virtual sound reconstruction was firstly performed in the Arlecchino Ambiophonic listening room at the University of Bologna in 2008 [March, 27th].