No setting could better suit the artist than the Collège des Bernardins, which combines the beauty of its architecture, the mystical character of a religious building, the intellectual density of an ancient university that is now returning to its pedagogical function, and the strength of a past that has embraced the great moments of religious and civil history. My first sensation," he says, "was that of a place of great spirituality, of great purity, with a beautiful light that added much to this spirituality. It was an exceptional place.

The strength of the place is matched by the strength of the work: by recalling the intellectual and spiritual memory of the Collège des Bernardins, but also by staging the destruction and oblivion, Claudio Parmiggiani offers us, more than a work, the experience of a revelation