Fieldwork activities in Italy, in particular excavations, continued to be affected by the Coronavirus pandemic in 2021, but smaller teams conducting non-invasive surveys were able to resume work after travel restrictions were eased. The fieldwork of the ERC-funded Rome Transformed project had in part been affected, as whilst the geophysical component of the research was able to continue through Italy-based teams, other surveys including structural analysis and laser scanning had been postponed. Therefore, the past year has seen a flurry of activity with a particular focus on the Sessorian palace complex at Santa Croce. The initial results of the project from the geophysical surveys and structural analysis of the hydraulic systems were presented at several online project workshops over the course of the year.
The new long-term excavation programme launched by the British School at Rome and the Universities of Harvard and Toronto at Falerii Novi began in June 2021 with a season of fieldwalking and environmental coring (with the support of Ghent University). The report in the following pages describes the overall aims of the project as well as the methodology adopted by the 2021 survey, which sought to finalise the location of the 2022 excavation trenches.
The joint research of the BSR with the Università di Bologna and the Centro Studi per l'Archeologia dell'Adriatico di Ravenna at Monte Rinaldo continued in the summer of 2021 as excavations moved away from the Republican sanctuary to an area further south where an earlier geophysical survey by the BSR had located a smaller area of activity. The excavations, led by the team from the Università di Bologna, identified a building with a range of artisanal activities, perhaps associated to a later phase of occupation in the Augustan period. Elsewhere on the Adriatic coast the BSR provided further geophysical expertise returning to the site of Spina where a previous BSR survey had revealed in remarkable detail the layout of the Etruscan settlement (Kay et al., Reference Kay, Pomar and Hay2020). The new survey, in support of fieldwalking and aerial photography, examined an area of activity a few kilometres to the south in the Valle Pega.
The research project at the Roman villa at Matrice (Campobasso, Molise) continued in 2021 with further geophysical survey, investigating the immediate vicinity of the church of Santa Maria della Strada. The project, conducted by the BSR together with the Ashmolean Museum (Oxford) and King's College London, seeks to bring to publication the excavations led by John Lloyd in the early 1980s whilst also clarifying the chronology and extent of the site. Excavations will recommence in late 2022 with a final season focusing on the Samnite structure at the heart of the complex.
The geophysical prospection service of the BSR continues to flourish with support given to numerous research projects both in Rome and further afield. The integration of 3D standing building survey, using both photogrammetry and laser scanning, with Ground-Penetrating Radar (GPR) has been at the forefront of recent BSR research, in particular with a collaboration with Cambridge University. The integration of the techniques allows the possibility of a vision of the sub-surface together with the standing architecture, which in the case of church interiors is of significance as it has become increasingly clear how closely integrated artworks, like altarpieces and choir screens, were with their architectural and ritual setting. Over the course of 2021, following successful funding applications to the BA/Leverhulme small grants scheme and the Cambridge Humanities Research Grants Scheme, the churches of Sant'Agostino (San Gimignano), San Domenico (Città di Castello) and San Donato in Scopeto (Florence) were recorded with GPR and laser scanning. At the church of Sant'Agostino, the survey of the interior revealed a significant number of previously unknown tombs in the nave, as well as the existence of a separate chapel that was once on the southern side of the church. At San Domenico in Città di Castello, the GPR survey focused upon recording possible traces of a choir screen, as well as recording the interior of the church with laser scanning in order to digitally place Raphael's famous Mond Crucifixion (now in the National Gallery) into its original position in order to understand its accessibility to the laity. Finally, San Donato in Scopeto by contrast is an open-air ruin, demolished in 1529 in preparations for a siege of Florence. Its plan is unknown, whilst Leonardo conceived his unfinished Adoration of the Magi (1481-2, Uffizi) for the high altar. Located on a small hill overlooking Porta Romana, the area was first topographically recorded and subsequently investigated by GPR.
Fig. 1. Location of the archaeological fieldwork projects in Italy.
Non-invasive surveys will continue to be at the forefront of the BSR fieldwork programme in 2022; however, with the decreasing effects of the COVID pandemic it is expected that a number of excavations will recommence in the summer and subsequently be reported in future editions of PBSR.
