The components recognised as world heritage sites by UNESCO (the so-called “serial site”, the focus of universal interest) wind along the Via Appia Claudia – the route begun in 312 BC. by the censor Appius Claudius Caecus to connect Rome to Capua, then extended to Benevento, Venosa, Taranto and Brindisi, a bridgehead towards Greece and the East, as the Roman conquest progressed – and along the Via Appia Traiana, the variant desired and created by the emperor Trajan in 109 AD. to facilitate the route from Benevento to Brindisi.

Conceived for military needs, the Via Appia immediately became a road for central commercial communications and primary cultural transmissions; the names with which the ancient authors themselves defined it, insignis, nobilis, celeberrima, regina viarum, testify to all the political, administrative, economic, social and propagandistic values ​​that earned it its millenary fortune. A gigantic monument of Rome’s technique, foresight and organisational capacity, the Appian Way played a fundamental role in the Romanisation of even distant territories, contributing to the spread of urban civilisation and the material and cultural unification of populations scattered throughout the Roman world.

Among all the other roads, the Appia continued to constitute a fundamental route through the centuries, as attested by the historical sources and the archaeological, architectural and historical-artistic evidence found along its path. The meaning of the street, a proper “place of memory”, has become a symbol full of the value scholars and artists have contributed to keeping alive and increasing since the Renaissance, an authentic “cultural heritage” and an exceptional testimony to history.

The celebratory event for the registration of the “Via Appia” site will take place on Wednesday, 31 July 2024, at 7 p.m. in Rome.