Poggibonsi, the treasures of the Archeodrome and the fortress of Poggio Imperiale
It has been buried for centuries. Then a few years ago the discovery and excavations. It is the first Italian open-air museum dedicated to the early Middle Ages which is slowly emerging in Poggibonsi in the Sienese Valdelsa. This is the Archeodrome of the Fortress of Poggio Imperiale.
A unique and immersive experience, a journey into the past at the time of Charlemagne inside which it is possible to admire a village of the IX-X found by the archaeologists of the University of Siena. Today it has the support of various institutions: the Municipality of Poggibonsi with the Sienese Museums Foundation, the Tuscany Region and the scientific and practical contribution of the University of Siena.
“In October 2014 – underlines the mayor of Poggibonsi David Bussagli – We opened the first portion of the village which was followed by other work phases thanks to the activation of multiple synergies and collaborations. Phases always accompany by increasing participation. The Archeodrome has been able to gather and solicit – not fail to point out Bussagli – media attention, academic and scientific interest, and has been able to attract visitors and tourists. In short, it has become an important destination for students from all over Italy and is the subject of a process of digitization of contents for even virtual enhancement “.
In essence, the visitor has the opportunity to see firsthand, how the life of that distant period flowed, understand customs, religion, customs, crafts, ways of dressing, eating, working where the village is not a simple representation but something of vital and real. However, a project still being updated. A past that the Archeodrome enhances by reviving the area of the Fortress, built between the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth century by Lorenzo the Magnificent with the aim of strengthening the territorial defenses of the Florentine dominion.
“The activity – continues Bussagli – also linked to the animation events that the constant one is carried out, has been significantly affected by the pandemic”. However now we are proceeding expeditiously. “Now the need is to proceed towards the construction of new components of the village and towards its completion. For this reason – he adds – as a Municipality we are moving to find funding to develop a project that can count on a team of enthusiasts and professionals led by Professor Marco Valenti. This is a public archeology project that has become the fulcrum of a long-term planning that concerns Poggio Imperiale and in which history and identity become levers of growth and development “.
Professor Valenti, scientific director of the Archeodrome, recalls how the excavations on the hill of Poggio Imperiale “are one of the most important discoveries in the twenty-year investigations of the University of Siena. In a settlement sequence of over 8 centuries, of great importance and well known at the European scientific level – explains the archaeologist – it is the phase of the village of huts of the ninth-mid-tenth century to date there are 6, out of a total of 17, its components rebuilt between October 2014 and 2019 “.
A project that is based on the reconstruction of structures, on the actions of experimental archeology, on the revival of ancient technologies, real scenes of everyday life in the Carolingian period, narration-interpretation. “The archaeologists employed here, the university staff – explains Valenti – are the protagonists in each of the activities listed, to communicate and disseminate the results of the research through direct forms to the general public”.
The Archeodrome is therefore a lively place where the story is lived and told in a non-traditional way. The public who arrives at the village is guaranteed “the thrill of an immersive experience, favoring learning processes that exploit sensorial abilities and captivating but not trivialized communication registers