Raniero Mengarelli e la creazione di un inedito paesaggio di rovine. Gli scavi, i restauri, il giardino e gli accessi all’area archeologica della Banditaccia di Cerveteri

In the first half of the 20th Century, a selected area of the Banditaccia Necropolis was transformed into a modern archaeological site. The excavation works, the restoration and reconstruction choices of the funerary architecture, a new way to access the area and the construction of a garden within the visitators’ enclosure resulted in the creation of an ancient landscape which had never existed before. The original identity of the Etruscan cemetery was completely reinvented and the Banditaccia was transformed into one of the most fascinating ancient sites in the Mediterranean. Raniero Mengarelli (1863-1944), an “amateur” architect-archaeologist and the first Director of the Ufficio per gli Scavi dei mandamenti di Civitavecchia e Tolfa (established in 1909), was the most outstanding protagonist of those years and today must be considered the main inventor of the modern Banditaccia. Starting from the author’s already published studies (Porretta 2020), the paper aims to reconstruct the patrimonialisation process of the Banditaccia, with specific focus on the years 1908-1944, when the Banditaccia underwent its most radical transformation with the construction of a funerary landscape, clearly artificial but extraordinarily effective and immediately addictive in the collective imagination. The overall objective is to fill a gap in historical knowledge, but also to provide operational tools that can be used for the maintenance of what has been inherited from the last century and to guide future projects (excavation, restoration, enhancement), even if the intention is to update past choices and follow new exegetical paths. After a short reconstruction of Mengarelli’s biography, the methods and reasons for the modern invention of the Banditaccia’s ancient landscape will be analyzed in historical perspective, with specific reference to the excavation work, the restoration of the architectural structures, the creation of the garden and the new way of accessing the visitors’ enclosure.