Articles by Davide Mastroianni

The author illustrates a research project aimed at making an important contribution to the topographical knowledge of the urban area inside the city walls of Roman Telesia, located near Benevento (S. Salvatore Telesino). The urban survey has involved topographical and archaeological research and a selected coverage of the western area of the city, near Porta Volturno, using satellite images and low altitude aerial photography. A Geographical Information System, based on the integration of aerial data, maps and the digitization of several negative cropmarks, has allowed the author to develop a database for the visualization and comprehension of the complex ancient site of Telesia and to interpret the urban planning of the Roman city.

The city of Falerii Novi is situated on the lowest eastern slopes of Monti Cimini, in the volcanic area on the western side of Tiber Valley, in the district of Fabrica di Roma (VT). The ancient Roman town was founded in 241 BC, the same year of the occupation and destruction of the ancient Faliscan town of Falerii Veteres (now Civita Castellana). Recent geophysical and lidar surveys, conducted between 1998 and 2008 by S. Keay and R. Opitz, allowed the reconstruction of the ancient city plan characterized by an orthogonal grid that was organized into 69 insulae. Thanks to geophysical surveys in 2008, along with the study of aerial photographs by G. Scardozzi in 2004, it was possible to identify a large Roman domus with slightly different orientation to the northern walls of the ancient city. These data validated the information from the excavation campaigns conducted between 1821 and 1830 and between 1969 and 1975. The research aims at integrating the data from the landscape surveys in the area of Civita Castellana in 1994, which were carried out by the Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici dell’Etruria Meridionale, with data derived from the analysis of aerial photointerpretation. The objective was to define, with precision, new elements for the reconstruction of the ancient topography of Falerii Novi.