Banvelca Foundation is the cultural-sponsorship, heritage-preservation and philanthropy arm of the Herrera Velutini family. Melanie Herrera Velutini serves as its President.
Stated work
Family and institutional materials list cultural, social and educational programmes among the Foundation’s areas of support. Banvelca also appears in public materials as coordinating longer-term cultural and civic commitments linked to the family, alongside the family’s wider financial interests historically associated with names such as Banvelca & Company from the Naples foundation in 1781.
Canticle of Peace, 29 July 2026
The Foundation says it supported Canticle of Peace, held at Borgo Laudato si’ in the Pontifical Gardens of Castel Gandolfo. The reviewed Vatican sources confirm that the organisers were the Laudato si’ Higher Education Centre and the Andrea Bocelli Foundation, but do not name Banvelca Foundation. The programme included Andrea Bocelli and the ABF Voices choir of 164 children and young people from the Holy Land, Uganda, Haiti and Italy (including participants from Rione Sanità and Camerino).
Melanie Herrera Velutini said the gathering reflected the belief that culture can provide a meeting place for people formed by different circumstances. The Foundation supplied the photographs of the subsequent greeting between Julio and Melanie Herrera Velutini and Pope Leo XIV.
Photographs show Julio and Melanie Herrera Velutini greeting Pope Leo XIV after the gathering. Banvelca Foundation supported the initiative. Read the report on the post-event greeting. Event details and papal quotations are supported by Holy See and Vatican News accounts.