The Aniene Valley and the Sacred: A Reading in Motion

This contribution analyzes the Aniene Valley as a historical and cultural construct in which the sacred acts as the organizing principle of the landscape. Through an interdisciplinary perspective—historical, archaeological, morphological, and symbolic—it identifies the stratification of rock sanctuaries, necropolises, churches, hermitages, and monasteries, from pre-Roman cults to Benedictine monasticism, highlighting the relationships between devotional settlements, natural resources, and travel networks. The territorial organization along four geographical lines allows us to read the progressive transformation of sacred forms in relation to topography and settlement processes. What emerges is an interpretation of the valley as a coherent system of material and immaterial permanence, in which architecture, nature, and collective memory contribute to the definition of a landscape and cultural identity.