Sacred landscapes in central Italy: votive deposits and sanctuaries (400 BC–AD 400)

[Authors and titles are listed at the end of the review]

Over the last decade or so, scholars have focused on the intersection of nature with sacred and ritual practices. The exploration of this interaction, which had featured prominently in Ingrid Edlund-Berry’s still heavily quoted The Gods and the Place (1987), has recently seen a proliferation of new publications and research: volumes of collected studies (for example, Bassani et al. 2019; Nocentini et al. 2018) as well as new archaeological field projects that investigate this linkage of the sacred and nature (for example, San Casciano Bagni or the Pantanacci Cave or the Sanctuary of Piana del Lago).

Sacred Landscapes in Central Italy: Votive Deposits and Sanctuaries (400 BC-AD 400) plunges deeply into these sacred waters, making major contributions—both in new work and in international accessibility—to the burgeoning study of the materiality of religion. Focusing on religious practices at caves, rivers, lakes, mountains, and springs in Central Italy, Sacred Landscapes brings together 25 chapters on sites and votives from as far south as Lanuvium to as far north as Cetamura in Chianti, from the mid-Republican to the Early Christian periods (though, in fact, some chapters detail earlier, Archaic phases and rituals as well). The editors of the volume, Fabiana Fabbri and Alessandro Sebastiani, have assembled a timely and encyclopedic mix of chapters on new excavations and updated scientific analyses, as well as novel re-examinations of past discoveries. The result is a cohesive and thorough exploration of ongoing and recent research into the sacred landscapes and religious practices of the region.

Much of the research presented in this volume, written by and large by authors associated with Italian universities or institutions, would typically have appeared in a mix of Italian journals or Italian-language special editions (for example, in Scienze dell’Antichità’s thematic volumes). Published in this collection entirely in English, these 25 chapters offer a broad community of international scholars an easy entry point to the latest developments in research, a database of new excavations, catalogues of previous discoveries, high-quality photographs of recent finds and in-progress excavations (in color as well as black and white), detailed site plans documenting new excavations, and an up-to-date bibliography.

The volume is organized in four sections: (1) votives; (2) sanctuaries; (3) producing for the sacred; and (4) reflective essays. The great majority of chapters (11) are in the sanctuary section, followed by votives (7), with three chapters each in the final two sections. The editors’ solution to the nearly impossible problem of sorting these 25 overlapping studies into some arrangement that does not detract from the great value of the collection for the integrated study of landscape, materials, and meaning has at least the virtue of offering a short-cut to specialists interested in particular sites and themes. One wishes, however, that there were more cross references to other chapters within the volume’s individual articles.

In a short review, I cannot discuss in detail (nor even in brevity) the diverse content of each of these 25 material studies, so I will start by highlighting some overall themes present in most of the chapters, and then move to a brief discussion of a few articles that engage with these themes. Aside from the connective threads of water, health, and fertility linking the human, natural, and supernatural worlds that run purposefully throughout the various chapters (and are elaborated on in the reflexive essays in the final section), there are a number of additional prominent themes. For example, chapters investigate both public urban sanctuaries (as at Roselle [Zifferero] or Campo della Fiera [Stopponi]) and rural sacred places (for example, Piana del Lago [Jaillet and Lovergne] or Podere Cannicci [Fabbri]). The variety of sacred settings underscores the multiple (and even sometimes uncustomary) ways natural resources can interact with ritual and sacred places in the Roman world. (Note that with the exception of Rafanelli’s chapter and, in part, Rossi’s chapter, the focus of the papers is on public cult places.)

In addition to topographical setting, the chronological scope of the volume—with the majority of chapters centered around the main phases of construction or ritual use during the mid-late Republican period—allows for more in-depth investigations into the local vs. the Roman, or for the transition from the Etruscan to Roman periods, leading to questions of how spaces might change or adapt when they become Roman colonies (for example, Torraccia di Chiusi [Tabolli and Giuffrè]; Talamonaccio [Chirico]; Campetti [Fusco]; Pyrgi [Michetti and Belelli Marchesini]; Campo della Fiera [Stopponi]; and Southern Tuscany [Vanni]). We must note here with some regret the missed opportunities for explicit theoretical follow-up to the quite interesting, data-driven questions of place and space raised in these chapters, a disappointing near absence, typical throughout the compilation, of a direct engagement with theory. (Taylor is the lone chapter that implements an explicitly theoretical approach.)

Along too with such questions of change, many of the chapters (both those in the votive section and those in the sanctuary section) look at the continuity of sites and practices over many centuries, an approach strengthened by recent excavations and by recent developments in scholarly approaches to studying religious sites (for example, Cetamura del Chianti [Taylor]; Monte Li Santi-Le Rote [De Lucia Brolli]; Scoglietto [Sebastiani]; San Casciano dei Bagni [Tabolli and Mariotti]). Many of the sites discussed in individual chapters make reference to trade or shared customs, underscoring themes of economic interrelations or cultural interconnectivity (for example, at Roselle [Zifferero]; Volterra [Bonamici and Taccola]; Pyrgi [Michetti and Belelli Marchesini]; Lavinium [Jaia]).

Finally, in a volume focused on this time period, one has, of course, discussion of the more well-known rituals such as animal sacrifice or anatomical votive offering. But it is the lesser-known rituals or uncustomary religious practices described in various chapters that add greatly to the novelty and value of this volume. For example: the foundation or obliteration/desacralization rituals (turning an altar intentionally upside down at Piana del Lago [Jaillet and Lovergne], filling in pits with ceramic offerings and remains of sacrificial animals at Pyrgi [Michetti and Belelli Marchesini] or at Campo della Fiera [Stopponi] or at Roselle [Zifferero]); the breaking of vases or the offering of liquid libations through a hole in a terracotta head at Campo della Fiera (Stopponi); the display of votives intentionally placed on watery rocks at the Pantanacci Cave (Attenni, Fischetti, and Granata); or a partially eaten meal destined for the gods or the deposit of iron nails both at Cetamura del Chianti (de Grummond).

I now turn to three chapters, one from each main evidentiary section, that showcase different strengths of the volume as a whole. From the volume’s first section on votives, reflecting advances in recent excavation techniques, scientific technologies, and conservation strategies, Attenni, Fischetti, and Granata, in “The Votive Deposit of Pantanacci,” discuss both the context of the votives within the sacred cave of Pantanacci and the original production and conservation of these clay votives. The authors describe the pottery (mostly impasto ollae and black-gloss-ware miniatures, for example) as well as the substantial range of anatomical votives, and reconstruct how they would have been originally placed and experienced in the sacred cavern: the anatomical votives may have been set in niches or arranged with stones to stabilize them and the miniature pottery may have been set on a rock to allow water to cover it. This chapter as well carefully details the manufacturing process of the terracotta objects (a nice connection to the votive production at Lavinium described in Jaia’s article). What makes this chapter especially valuable is the discussion of the advanced research techniques associated with these votives and the ways in which the authors explore the geological characteristics of hydrothermal fluids as well as detail the intensive cleaning process necessary for the objects due to the environmental conditions of the cave.

From the volume’s second section on sanctuaries, De Lucia Brolli, in “The Sanctuary of Monte Li Santi- Le Rote, Narce (Mazzano Romano-Calcata),” traces the transformations of this complex from its first phase of construction in the 3^rd quarter of the fifth century BCE to a period of Roman presence at the site during the fourth century BCE, looking at both the space itself and at votive finds. The author carefully examines the layout and orientation of the sanctuary in connection with the course of the Treja River, with particular attention to the “peculiar spatial articulation” (175) and lack of symmetry of the sanctuary and its altars. Here, the author weaves an analysis of the votive deposits found in-situ into a larger discussion of cult practice to Demeter and Persephone. De Lucia Brolli intriguingly traces how, over time, the prominence of this female-addressed cult worship that had characterized religious practices at Narce in fifth and fourth centuries BCE transfers to a more male-directed type of worship in the mid-third century BCE, a shift associated with the deposition of over 300 masks with red-coloring. The author insightfully notes parallels in changes of layout, architecture, and orientation of the buildings of the complex with the types of votives deposited, and further embeds these observations in a larger discussion of the types of worshippers at the site, as well as the site’s spatial and religious reactions to the presence of Romans.

Di Giuseppe, in “The Production of Black Gloss Ware for Sacred Areas between Demons and Gods,” takes the reader fully into the world of sacred production—the theme of the volume’s third section—by looking at black-gloss ware produced within sanctuaries in the fourth-first centuries BCE. While this study is not a discussion of new excavations or of new scientific approaches (and recasts data presented in her 2012 book), it is an important addition to the volume as a whole and connects with many of the chapters in previous sections (for example, Taylor; De Grummond; Zifferero) as well as to the other two chapters in the “producing for the sacred” section (Cruciani; Jaia). Her documentation and cataloguing of 251 kilns (and 72 indirect types of evidence of ceramic production) in Italy from the fourth to first century BCE, noting the overwhelming connection of kilns with sacred buildings, provide an invaluable data source. In this chapter, Di Giuseppe asks enticing, pressing, and hard to pin down questions: “Did the artisans apply to the city authorities to practice their art at the sanctuaries? Did they choose the sanctuaries in which to operate, or were they assigned to them by the authorities based on the calendar of holidays that would have moved things and people in the urban centre? To whom did the artisans pay the taxes for this privilege, the city or the sanctuary” (293)? If only we could know the answers! While we, as readers, are limited in such ambitions by the nature of the evidence, we could, perhaps, think through some of the data presented in other chapters in this volume with these provocative questions in mind. For example, in discussing the production of votive statues at Lavinium, Jaia examines details of the manufacturing of the statues (the use of molds, for example, or added details like folds of drapery) to question the varying roles and ethnicities of the artisans and their possible connections to different Lavinian sanctuaries.

To have a volume of 25 chapters, all written in English, offering a broad survey of recent archaeological excavations, current scientific analyses, or re-examinations of previously collected data, is undoubtedly of enormous value to anyone interested in the materiality of religion in Roman Central Italy. Just the images, plans, and bibliographies alone promise to be an important resource to scholars working on this material or interested in comparanda from this time period. And, while the division between sections seems somewhat arbitrary, and while one might wish for a more fluid approach, allowing for more references and more conversation among chapters, sites, and ways of modeling data, the volume certainly more than accomplishes what it set out to do: to “showcase some of the ongoing research in Central Italy,” to be a “scholarly endeavor…[and] disseminate knowledge” about recent research from sanctuaries and sacred practices (19, 20). It promises to be the volume that immediately comes to hand when one wants a wealth of up-to-date research on sacred places and ritual in this region and at this time period.

Works Cited

Bassani, Maddalena, Marion Bolder-Boos, and Ugo Fusco, eds. Rethinking the Concept of ‘Healing Settlements’: Water, Cults, Constructions and Contexts in the Ancient World. Archaeopress Roman Archaeology, 52. Oxford: Archaeopress Publishing, 2019.

Berry, Ingrid Edlund. The gods and the place. Location and function of sanctuaries in the countryside of Etruria and Magna Graecia (700–400 B.C.) (Skrifter utgivna av Svenska institutet i Rom, 4°, 43), Stockholm 1987.

Nocentini, Alessandro, Susanna Sarti, and P. Gregory Warden, eds. Acque Sacre: Culto etrusco sull’Appennino toscano. Florence: Consiglio regionale della Toscana, 2018.

Authors and Titles

1. Introduction (Fabiana Fabbri and Alessandro Sebastiani)

Section I – Votive Deposits

2. The Votive Deposit of Pantanacci (Luca Attenni, Agnese Livia Fischetti, and Giuseppe Granata)
3. A Dripstone or Votive Offering in the Shape of a Naval Prow from the Area of the Sanctuary of Juno Sospita (Luca Attenni)
4. The Votive Deposit of Podere Cannicci (Civitella Paganico – Grosseto) (Fabiana Fabbri)
5. Cults and Votive Deposits in the Middle Valley of the Fiora River (Debora Rossi)
6. The Sacred Landscape of Torraccia di Chiusi at San Gimignano between the Etruscans and the Romans (Jacopo Tabolli and Enrico Maria Giuffrè)
7. Multum in Parvo: Miniature Votives, Artisans, and Ritual at Cetamura del Chianti (Laurel Taylor)
8. Places of Worship and Votive Offerings in Roselle (Andrea Zifferero)

Section II – Sanctuaries

9. The Sanctuary of the Acropolis of Volterra: A Place of worship through the Centuries (Marisa Bonamici and Emanuele Taccola)
10. The Sacred Places of Blera and its Territory (Francesca Ceci and Paola Di Silvio)
11. The Sanctuary at Talamonaccio (Elena Chirico)
12. The Sanctuary of the Etruscan Artisans at Cetamura del Chianti (Nancy T. de Grummond)
13. The Sanctuary of Monte Li Santi-Le Rote, Narce (Mazzano Romano – Calcata): Landscape and Cult Transformations of a Religious Complex from its Origins to Romanization (Maria Anna De Lucia Brolli)
14. Campetti, Southwest Area (Ugo Fusco)
15. A Sacred Landscape on the Shores of Lake Bolsena: New Discoveries from the Etruscan-Roman Sanctuary of Piana del Lago (2020-2022) (Martin Jaillet and Edwige Lovergne)
16. Pyrgi’s Sanctuary after Dionysus of Syracuse’s Raid (384 BC): Votive Deposits, Rituals, Cults, and the Fruition of the Sacred Place (Laura Maria Michetti and Barbara Belelli Marchesini)
17. Back to Scoglietto: The Sanctuary of Diana Umbronensis (Alessandro Sebastiani)
18. The Campo della Fiera at Orvieto: The fanum Voltumnae (Simonetta Stopponi)
19. Unlocking the Roman Sacred Landscape at San Casciano dei Bagni (Jacopo Tabolli and Emanuele Mariotti)

Section III – Producing for the Sacred

20. The Pottery Workshop in Campo della Fiera, Orvieto (Marco Cruciani)
21. The Production of Black Gloss Ware for Sacred Areas Between Demons and Gods (Helga di Giuseppe)
22. The Production of Votives in Lavinium (Alessandro M. Jaia)

Section IV – Reflective Essays

23. Waterscapes in Roman Times: Sacredness of Springs and their Influence on Sanctuaries (Fabiana Fabbri)
24. A Domestic Cult. The Votive Bronze Statuettes from the Domus of the Dolia at Vetulonia (Simona Rafanelli)
25. A Liquid Goddess: Artumes/Diana in Etruria and the Construction of Landscapes in Southern Tuscany (Edoardo Vanni)