The event commemorated the prodigious work by Neapolitan sculptor Giuseppe Sanmartino which depicts a full-size dead Christ covered by a transparent shroud that highlights the wounds of martyrdom. He is alone, and the mourning figures usually included in traditional pictorial and statuary groups are missing. Abel Ferrara – a director and actor known for his stories of redemption, Christian questioning and inner turmoil – has given voice to the mourners through Tinti’s poetry, trying to respond to the work. To write his own words, the poet was inspired by the mourners and funeral lamentations that took on, since ancient times, the performative and theatrical dimension of sacred representations and ceremonies.

The project is part of Tinti’s reading series focused on the ancient masterpieces which are already hosted with live readings that, over recent years, some actors known to the general public, like Malcolm McDowell, Abel Ferrara, Marton Csokas, Joe Mantegna, Robert Davi, Burt Young and Franco Nero have made before the most important works of ancient art that inspired the author. The readings have been given at the Metropolitan of New York, the J. Paul Getty Museum and the LACMA in Los Angeles, the British Museum in London and many more.