L’Unità di Roma. Spazi sacri e Late Antiquity. Metodi e prospettive di ricerca per il Progetto FIRB

This paper presents the results of the research carried out by the Rome Unit of the FIRB Project Spazi sacri e percorsi identitari. Testi di fondazione, iconografia, culto e tradizioni nei santuari cristiani italiani fra Tarda Antichità e Medioevo. The main paths of the research and its outputs are described, with a focus on the connection between Christianity/Christianities and sacred spaces in a diachronic perspective. Late Antiquity proved to be a fertile period and context for the investigation and reflection of such topics, from a historical-methodological prospective. The main studies on the connection between ancient Christianity and spatiality are mentioned and described; attention is drawn, as well, to the studies on the historical-religious and anthropological aspects underlying both the definition of a place as sacred and the dynamic relationship between sacred spaces and communities. Finally, the paper presents the studies devoted to the genesis and the development of the foundation legends of sanctuaries and to the historical-literary, archaeological and historical-artistic investigations, applied to a specific case study: the sanctuary of St. Michael at Mount Tancia (Rieti).