Geographies of the Sacred East of Rome

The essay investigates the notion of the sacred as a foundational category of human experience and as a device capable of structuring space and landscape, taking the Aniene Valley—particularly the stretch east of Rome—as an emblematic case study. Drawing on the theoretical framework outlined by Émile Durkheim and Mircea Eliade, the text interprets the sacred not as an intrinsic quality of places, but rather as the outcome of symbolic, ritual, and social processes that, over time, have set apart, consecrated, and endowed specific territorial contexts with meaning. The author highlights how the Aniene Valley displays a stratification of signs—necropoleis, mausoleums, sanctuaries, monasteries, rural churches—that testify to both the continuity and the transformation of religious practices from antiquity through the Middle Ages to the present day. In particular, the stretch between Rome and Tivoli preserves traces of a diffuse sacrality that is now partially obscured by urbanization, whereas beyond Tivoli the natural landscape—forests, mountain ridges, and waterways—emerges as a privileged matrix for monastic and contemplative experiences, culminating in the Benedictine complexes of Subiaco. The contribution proposes an integrated reading that brings together architecture, orography, and spirituality, emphasizing the role of pilgrimage routes and slow mobility as epistemological tools and as practices for reactivating the sacred landscape. The guide thus presents itself not as a mere catalog of monuments, but as a cultural project aimed at restoring unity to the relationship between memory, collective identity, and territory, enhancing both tangible and intangible heritage through a mindful experience of walking.