The beauty of the constructed, reconstructed and reconfigured
Itinerary 4
The beauty of the constructed, reconstructed and reconfigured
While farmers and shepherds preserve daily agro-pastoral practices, other needs move explorers to discover the city. The arrival of nineteenth-century travellers, engaged in personal Grand Tours, has sparked a different interest in ancient remains. Starting from the second half of the nineteenth century, what the land and rural dwellings had long preserved gradually re-emerged: the Basilica and the buildings north of the Forum were rediscovered, Mommsen published his rich epigraphic study, the photographs of Mackey, Musa and Trombetta captured the superimposed experience of the reconfigured landscape, between the rural and ancient worlds. In the 1950s Valerio Cianfarani rediscovered and restored a large portion of the urban fabric, uncovering most of the structures visible today and collecting the material dispersed on the ground. The passage of the publicly owned Tratturo (sheep track) through the urban area made it possible to operate on terrain that was free from property constraints, on which the major public and sacred buildings stood. Starting from the 1970s, the archaeological investigations of the Superintendence began, carried out in collaboration with the Universities, which over the years have made it possible to increase the knowledge of the ancient city and its territory.
Returning to the ancient form
Itinerary 4
Returning to the ancient form
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the English baron Richard Keppel Craven embarked on his tour through the lands of Molise and decided to stop in a tavern in Altilia to rest the horses. During his short stay, he took the opportunity to get lost among the ancient remains and described the sensations he felt in his book of explorations. The city presented itself in its enchanting amenity, the vestiges of past times coexisted with the rural houses still surrounded by the city walls, in which the four gates opened. Of the monumental entrances, the mighty gateposts remained, partly underground, and only the gate in the direction of the Tammaro valley preserved its monumental arch. In the 1950s Cianfarani rediscovered the large moulded blocks, the fragments of epigraphs, the sculptures and the decorative elements disintegrated and dispersed throughout the farmland and pastures; the study of ancient monuments, carried out in collaboration with the architect Italo Gismondi, allowed the recomposition of the Porta Bojano, a section of the walls and towers, the mausoleum of the Numisi and the definitive anastylosis of the columns of the Basilica. The meticulous recomposition and reconstruction of Porta Bojano, carried out by Gismondi, has made it possible to understand the original configuration of the city gates of Sepino, real triumphal arches that celebrated the power of Augustus’ family, restoring for contemporary travellers the original ideological and propagandistic meaning expressed through the power of images.
Redesigning the city walls
Itinerary 4
Redesigning the city walls
When nineteenth-century travellers reached Sepino, the imprint of the ancient city was clearly recognizable despite the abandonment, transformations and overlaps added within the town. The four monumental gates were easily outlined in the defensive perimeter but the collapses had opened other passes and created large gaps in the curtain walls. A long phase of wear and tear had irreparably affected the facings and the wall nuclei since, once the public function was lost, no one had taken charge of the protection of the city walls, exposing them to the processes of degradation. Since the Second World War, a large part of the wall system has been the subject of study and restoration work that has allowed the ancient layout to be brought back to light in almost its entirety. Preserving the opus reticulata masonry technique, a large amount of original material that was found in the collapse heaps and dispersed throughout the fields was recovered and relocated in the towers and rectilinear curtains, so that the monumental complex of the walls could once again return to its ancient splendour and show the expertise of Roman military engineering.
Staging the Roman Theatre
Itinerary 4
Staging the Roman Theatre
There is a place in Sepino that encloses the sequences of history, shows the succession of experiences and expresses the beauty of the built and the reinvented. This place is the Roman theatre which, from the Middle Ages until the last century, has changed its appearance to host scenes of daily life and contemporary stories. A small rural hamlet consisting of houses, stables and a rustic courtyard was built on the structures of the architectural complex. In order to preserve these testimonies, from the very first restoration interventions it was decided to preserve the houses on the scaenae (stage) and in the upper part of the hemicycle of the cavea, since they constituted an architectural context of great charm in harmony with the oldest walls. Many of the housing units were in a state of decay, others were still used but the organic recovery of the buildings has made it possible to give new value to the spaces, now used to tell the story of the territory. To restore the original monumental entrances to the theatrical structure, it was decided to demolish the peasant house built inside the tetrapylum, while to bring out the other ancient components, the large central fill, where the common farmyard for chickens and pigs was, was removed, as it covered the proscenium, the orchestra and part of the cavea with stone seats. The Roman theatre of Sepino has thus become a harmonious complex of great charm, which represents the sequences of history in a single scenic experience through which we can admire the spectacle of time.
Reinventing harmonies: the House of the Column
Itinerary 4
Reinventing harmonies: the House of the Column
Starting from the late antique period, the buildings began to undergo transformations, readaptations and structural variations from time to time useful to meet the needs of the people passing through the area. Within the ancient walls, buildings constructed on top of the pre-existing ancient structures were born and renewed, until they became new historical testimony in their own right. Buildings, architectural and decorative elements are systematically demolished to repurpose building material. Houses are built with dissimilar stone elements, recycled and put in place according to logics capable of reinventing unusual harmonies as in the Casa della Colonna, a peasant house that is spread over two floors in which ancient materials are relocated. On the main façade, a large external staircase leads to the rooms on the upper floor which is accessed through a balcony; the nearby room is set on a vaulted structure supported by a reused column. Seemingly unusual architectural solutions that have nevertheless been functional to Sepino’s many lives.
Retracing memory: the Mausoleum of Ennius Marsus
Itinerary 4
Retracing memory: the Mausoleum of Ennius Marsus
Near the monumental gates, along the edges of the Tratturo, there are the urban necropolises. Until the last century, the possibility of recovering the moulded elements of tombs, aedicules and funerary monuments from the ground led to a slow spoliation of the burial areas. The markers that identified the places of memory and deposition have in fact been reused in the nearby rural farms to reconstruct living spaces. At the beginning of the 20th century, through a meticulous survey of the remaining blocks dispersed on the ground, it was possible to reconstruct and restore the monumental tombsof important figures of the municipal aristocracy. Near Porta Benevento, the imposing monument dedicated to Caius Ennius Marsus has been partially recomposed in its shape of a cylindrical drum on a square base, funerary architecture typical of the Augustan period inspired by the imperial mausoleum. In the centre of the front façade there is an inscription bearing the cursus honorum of the holder accompanied by bas-reliefs that allude to the military and civil career of the deceased: the sella curulis, a folding seat prerogative of the magistrate with two fasces lictoriae; the capsa, a cylindrical case for storing rolls and codices; the suppedaneum, a stool to rest your feet. On the sides of the base there are two sculptures of lions in the act of crushing the head of a warrior with one paw, while a third lion is part of the collection of the Lapidarium.
AGRO-PASTORAL CIVILIZATION AND CULTURE
The story of peoples and communities
THE DEPTH OF THE WOODS
Landscape and nature
WATER AND SKY
The cult of Mefitis and the seasons
THE BEAUTY OF THE CONSTRUCTED
reconstructed and reconfigured
MOVEMENT AND EXCHANGE
Communication routes