The soundscape of the Trevi fountain in Covid-19 silence

Abstract

Abstract This paper is devoted to the analyses of sound-scape at fontana di Trevi in Rome (Italy) with the aim to compare its characteristics during the Italian lockdown due to the (Sars-COV2) Covid-19 sanitary emergency and its characteristics before and after such time. The lockdown has represented an exceptional environment due to the silence everywhere, never occurred in centuries, offering the opportunity to recognize the “signature” of the sound emitted by the famous Fontana di Trevi and recognize how it interacts with other features. The signature is important for preservation issues and cultural heritage. The soundscape was documented in a field survey by means of hand held microphones, which acquired simultaneously the acoustic wavefield all around the fountain. We find that the spectral content depends on the microphone location, revealing a very complex wavefield, showing strong amplitudes during the lockdown well below 1kHz and a frequency band extending up to 10kHz. In a time period far from the lockdown, we evidence an additional frequency band around 700-1kHz, which not simply adds to the previous spectrum, but acts as a synchronization mechanism. The important observation is that the Covid-19 silence let emerge sounds that had been there for centuries, and afforded us the possibility to document them in order to study objectively a “soundprint”. Moreover, we studied the spatialization characteristics of the soundfield.