Via Appia Antica, also known as “Regina Viarum”, is one of the most important roads built by the Romans and, since 2024, has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
It crosses Basilicata from Melfi to Genzano di Lucania. Along its route through the region, it intersects areas affected by the major land reform of the 1950s, during which many plots of land were expropriated from large landowners and redistributed to agricultural workers who previously had none. The reform ultimately proved unsuccessful, and much of what was built during those years is now abandoned or in ruins.
Today, only traces remain of what was once one of the most important roads built by the Romans two thousand years ago, in a kind of “harmony” with the abandonment of the surrounding territory.
The photographs in this series were taken in March 2024, just a few months before the Appian Way was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List.
This work is a continuation of the previous photographic project “Utopia”, which more fully depicts the landscapes shaped by the 1950s land reform.
