Since its inception in 2002 the Festival has gone from strength to strength, winning the plaudits of the public and critics by proposing the spiritually enlightening marriage between world-class performances and outstandingly beautiful sacred venues.

In 2004, the then President of the Italian Republic Carlo Azeglio Ciampi honoured the Festival by attending the concert given on 21 October by the Wiener Philharmoniker conducted by Riccardo Muti.

Pope Benedikt XVI was present as Cardinal Josef Ratzinger - in 2002 at a concert performed during the first Festival. In 2006 and 2007 His Holiness welcomed the Foundation’s benefactors, all the foreign visitors who had come to listen to the sublime religious music performed at the Festival and also the many musicians from abroad during the Sunday Angelus, just as his predecessor the Holy Father Pope Johannes Paul II had done before him.

In 2008 Pope Benedikt XVI and participants in the 12th General Assembly of the Bishops' Synod honoured the Festival by attending the concert held on 13 October in the Basilica of San Paolo fuori le Mura where the Wiener Philharmoniker conducted by Christoph Eschenbach performed Bruckner’s Sixth Symphony. The concert was also graced by the presence of Her Highness Princess Marie von und zu Liechtenstein, whom we wish to thank profoundly for supporting the Foundation.

In the years 2009 and 2011 HRH Princess Michael of Kent visited the Festival concerts as honorary guest.