THE SACRED AREA IN VIGNA SANTUCCI LOCALITY

In the hamlet of Casali di Mentana, on the hill in Casale Santucci, our territory’s history has been stratified for more than 2000 years. Between the end of the Republican age and the Augustan age (1st century BC- 1st century AD), to the south-west of the homonymous house, on the slopes of the hill, stood an important place of  extra urban worship located along the Nomentana street.

It included at least one public building, probably a temple, to which the architectural fragments exhibited here belong, and a base decorated with the bas-relief representation of bulls led to sacrifice, visible in the next section of the museum.

In post-ancient times, the place was part of the vast agricultural land of the so-called “Estate of Mentana”, property of the various noble families who have administered the feud over the centuries, to tie, finally, its name to the family Santucci, whose members were employed by the Borghese Prince from the end of the 17th century.

On the 3rd of November 1867, on the day that will be remembered as the “battle of Mentana”, within the campaign of the Agro Romano for the liberation of Rome, the farmhouse of Vigna Santucci was the scene of clashes between volunteers Garibaldini and the franco-pontifical troops under the orders of general Hermann Kanzler, who, right here, set up his headquarters.

In 1982, during the construction of the municipal kindergarten, a large part of the valuable materials of this and the next section of the museum came to light thanks to an excavation of the Soprintendenza that occurred as a result of clandestine activities, along with a stretch of the ancient Nomentana street that ran almost parallel to the modern road and was paved with limestone.

In this same place, during archaeological tests carried out in December 2022, for the purpose of building a parking lot, two small architectural fragments of frame have emerged.

These and the three largest fragments discovered in 1982 must obviously have belonged to the same public building that was to be built here.