Superb historical photos of the Appia Antica published for the first time together with their modern counterparts to document the ongoing battle against building speculation.
The book opens with a rousing piece written by Rita Paris, an archaeologist with the Special Department for Rome’s Archaeological Heritage Sites, who knows and loves this enchanting piece of Italy’s past like few others. And she is prepared to defend its natural beauty and archaeological treasures tooth and claw. As has been authoritatively documented by Adriano La Regina, Italo Insolera and Antonio Cederna, the Appia Antica represents the most important Italian study on the conservation of a stratified landscape: a particularly topical issue dealt with by Maria Pia Guermandi in her interesting chronicle from printing to the web. A superb collection of photographs from the past of the scenery that inspired so many artists and poets as they admired the archaeological splendours along the Regina viarum has been strikingly juxtaposed to present-day pictures. Thanks to the photographers of the time and their prints from various archives and collections, we discover lost treasures, while illegal speculation is equally well-documented. However there are also encouraging signs of change, with the results of recent digs and the areas saved from further speculation, purchased by the government, reopened to the public and currently undergoing improvement. For a better future. Superb historical photos of the Appia Antica published for the first time together with their modern counterparts to document the ongoing battle against building speculation.