The Via Flaminia as a route of cultural exchanges

The Via Flaminia was opened in 220 B.C. by the roman consul Caio Flaminio. The aim was to create a connection between Rome and the Adriatic Sea. Even if the project was particularly hard to realize because the Apennines had to be crossed diagonally, it became a strategical road for a long period. After the fall of the Roman Empire, also the powerful street network built during the centuries became worse and worse and the Via Flaminia had to follow this destiny. But it survived and in the XVI century it still represented an important channel of communication between North and Central Italy. Its path was constantly travelled not only by traders and merchants, but also by architects. Indeed, it was considered the easiest route through which an artist had the possibility of reaching Rome from Northern Italy. The Eternal City offered the possibility to study the buildings and the evolution of the architectures: Rome had been over the centuries the background of uninterrupted cultural transformations and each architect needed to know them for the elaboration of a personal style. But it is important to underline that the Via Flaminia itself offered monuments and buildings of high artistic interest. They could give to the most brilliant minds the initial prefiguration of what they would have seen once they had reached their destination in Lazio. Among them Baldassarre Peruzzi e Andrea Palladio must be mentioned first. Approaching Rome, they had the chance to see important sites. For example, both of them were astonished by the Temple of Minerva in Assisi. Moreover Palladio in Umbria studied the Roman Theatre in Gubbio, the famous Temple of Clitumnus and the Langobardic Basilica of San Salvatore in Spoleto. Antonio da Sangallo the Younger and Sebastiano Serlio analysed this historical heritage and Serlio described it in the Third and Fourth Book of his architectural work. Finally Michele Sanmicheli was inspired by the antiquities of the Via Flaminia in his projects as well. The goal of the research is to focus on the Via Flaminia not only as a commercial route, but also as a cultural path. Moreover the purpose is to offer some examples of the interactions between the architectural examples that are present in Central Italy and the reinterpretations of the architects that studied them during their way to Rome.