Fortresses and castles in Val d’Aniene. Traces in historical cartography and landscape

This contribution is part of a broader study that aims to retrace the aesthetic, and therefore historical- cultural, landscape transformations of the Tiburtina area of the middle Aniene Valley, defined by the Empiglione and Giovenzano valley systems. Among the area's distinctive characteristics is undoubtedly the role played over time by the dense network of fortifications that controlled and defended the main communication routes. Numerous documentary evidence and fortified settlements, many of which are now in ruins, exist in the area. These elements, which contribute to defining the landscape's identity in its current form, are found, with varying weight and character—and consequently, different presentations— in historical cartography, iconographic, graphic, and photographic sources attributable to the various historical periods they represent. Among the most significant cartographic representations drawn up in the second half of the 17th century, therefore in the pre-geodetic period, are those of Raffaele Fabretti and Giacomo Filippo Ameti, which were the subject of the specific study presented here. This study yielded significant and, in some respects, entirely new data for the study area. These data proved crucial for understanding the perceptual dynamics of the identifying elements of places, precisely for the purpose of ‘rereading’ and understanding the landscape itself diachronicly.