Presentatione by
VITTORIO GALLIAZZO:

he via Claudia Augusta is one of the most important routes built by the Romans in Northern Italy. Unlike the via Postumia, via Popillia, via Annia and other roads being almost completely located in the Po river Basin, the via Augusta, thanks to its clearly transalpine route, served as a connection between the Po plain and the territories conquered by the Romans beyond the Alps.. .. It almost appears as a typical and tangible expression of the many "construction wars" carried out by the Romans not only for military but also for commercial, cultural, administrative and, in a more general sense, civil purposes. The interest on this "transalpine" route seems to have recently increased, due to the fact that it not only represents a communication route reaching the Danube area through Veneto, Trentino-Alto Adige, Tirol, (Austria), or Schwabia and Bavaria (Germany), but is also a European route which coordinates territorial and administrative aspects by involving the most significant activities of the related territories as well as affecting their existing civil, historical, artistic and economic aspects and future developments.

n a word, the careful and critical research on the via Claudia Augusta, meant as a territorial body (apart from the controversy on the exact route), has offered the means to better understand the characteristics and the cultural identity of a wide trans alpine area. An adequate knowledge of local "roots" able to offer useful hints for opportune interventions of re-use in the cultural, economic and tourism field for the recovery of almost neglected territories is not to be forgotten.