Nuove percorrenze nell’area del Foro di Traiano tra X e XI secolo

The recent imposing excavation campaigns that have been involving the area of the Imperial Fora, have led to the rediscovery of fundamental data for the knowledge of this stratified urban palimpsest. In particular, the traces of the early medieval routes responsible for the new urban layout of the entire area of the Trajan Forum (Campus Kaloleonis) provide a great opportunity to understand the process of birth and growth of the new settlement that replaced the previous monumental function of the complex from the 10th century onwards. These findings constitute tangible evidence of the interesting network of roads, the main feature of the medieval settlement, which flanked the ancient road axes; routes that would seem to recover, under the monumental level of the imperial city, the framework of more ancient routes, conditioned by the original orography of this area. The analysis of the characteristics of these roads, the traces of which cross the forensic square in an irregular manner, defining the imprint of the future medieval district of Campo Carleo, allows us to better clarify the modalities of the slow deconstruction of the forensic complex seen in direct connection with the phases of growth of the new settlement and to define how their apparently random course is the direct result of reciprocal conditioning deriving from the renewed occupation of an abandoned roman space.