“Acoustics and architecture in Italian Catholic churches”,

The complex relationships between acoustics and architecture in churches are investigated in this paper. First of all acoustic data collected by the authors in more than fifty Italian churches are compared together with data measured by other researchers in several European churches in order to find similarities and differences with particular reference to reverberation time which is the acoustic parameter most frequently measured. In particular, the dependence of reverberation time as a function of architectural style and volume is investigated in greater detail. The results of this first analysis are then discussed more accurately by taking into account the sample of Italian churches and trying to explain the acoustic behaviour as a function of specific characteristic of each church. Finally, the dependence of other acoustic parameters (such as strength, clarity, and spaciousness) as a function of architectural features is investigated.