“Happy man …” – Thus begins the first psalm. A word that is together blessing and research, opening and questioning. It is precisely from here that the 21st edition of the biblical festival takes momentum, which from April 25 to June 1, 2025 invites you to set off inside the book of psalms: an open, generative, inexhaustible work. A millennial text that continues to vibrate in the present, in which man turns to God and himself, in an attempt to give voice to joys, pains, doubts and hopes.
With its intertwining of Poetry, prayer and narrationthe salter will be the spiritual and cultural compass of this edition, which wants to hold the depth of the Holy Scriptures with the Challenges of contemporaneity. The festival is proposed as a space for listening and active interpretation, where the biblical text is not only read, but rediscovered and crossed, until it becomes a mirror of our time.
The Biblical festival is promoted by Diocese of Vicenza and from the San Paolo Companywith the adhesion of the dioceses of Verona, Padua, Adria-Rovigo, Vittorio Veneto, Treviso, Chioggia, Alba and of Archdiocese of Catania and Genoa. A widespread and rooted project in the territories, which puts different languages in dialogue – from theology to art, from music to philosophy – in a dense program of Events, meetings, shows and workshops.
A Psalter of Voices
Among the most awaited innovations of this edition, the Psalter of the poets: a literary and spiritual experiment that involves some of the most significant voices of Italian contemporary poetry. Poets and poets of different generations and sensitivity have been inspired by the psalms, composing unpublished texts that will be presented in the form of Reading, performance and public meetings. A creative dialogue between ancient word and new word, in which spirituality meets the evocative strength of the poetic verse.
The cities of the Festival
Vicenzaoriginal and symbolic location of the Festival, will be one of the nerve centers of the 2025 edition. The historic center will welcome a dense calendar of appointments ranging from theological reflection to artistic paths, from scenic readings to sacred and contemporary music. In particular, i Cloisters of Santa Corona and the Palladian basilica They will host events that will relate the text of the psalms with the themes of care, of silence and the desire for justice. An entire section will be dedicated to the dialogue between Bible and Visual Arts, with installations and performances inspired by the language of psalms.
Also Genoaa city that has recently joined the Festival circuit, will propose an original and suggestive path. Through a Itinerary between Porto Antico, alleys and symbolic places of the cityThe psalms will be staged by theater companies, readers, actors and musicians in a series of itinerant events that will also involve the public. Particular attention will be given to the involvement of schools and youth communities, with Writing and biblical theater workshops which will transform the word of the psalms into an educational and relational tool.
Each diocese involved will enrich the program with its own gaze and history. TO Cataniathe Psalms will resonate between the folds of a territory that knows pain and hope, through events in peripheral neighborhoods and prisons. TO Paduawill be reflected on the theme of living and the limit, intertwining the biblical word with urban experience. TO Sunrisethe Langole hills will frame meditations on the way and concerts at sunset.
The Biblical Festival 2025 therefore presents itself as a plural and shared pathcapable of making the ancient and the new, the sacred and the newspaper dialogue. Psalms, with their evocative and universal strength, become the language with which to reread our human condition. In a fragmented and uncertain time, they return to offer us Words that keep, shouts that free, songs that open up to the meeting. All events and appointments are found on the website: https://www.festivalbiblico.it/
