Sacred Grove

The artwork “The Sacred Grove” (Il bosco sacro) by Ale Senso was created as part of the project “In the Footsteps of the Arvales. Voices and Images from the Origins of Rome to Contemporary Times,” curated by Muri Lab APS Association. This project aims to connect archaeology, contemporary art and urban narrative in the heart of Municipio XI district.

The project, promoted by Roma Capitale – Department of Culture, is the winner of the Public Notice Artes et Iubilaeum – 2025. It is funded by the European Union Next Generation EU for large tourist events under the PNRR (National Recovery and Resilience Plan), measure M1C3 – Investment 4.3 – Caput Mundi.

Description: the artist was inspired by the essential elements which are part of the rituals of the Fratres Arvales, Arval Brothers, but without their usual symbols: blood and fire, air and water.

Ale Senso states: “We are all ‘children of Mother Earth’: Flora, Dea Dia, Ceres, different names and identities for the same entity, the one honored with rituals and sacrifices in the hope of obtaining a good harvest. A goddess who watches over the fields and their yield and, at the same time, guarantees the organization and mapping of a territory that becomes increasingly wider and more populated. Material and symbolic consist in the dual nature of the human being -inseparable, only apparently opposed- which refers to the idea of duality, such as masculine and feminine, fire and water. It is then up to our abstract thought, as in an alchemical process, to harmonize and synthesize into a single form until harmony and synesthesia are achieved.”

Three white, pure trunks, whose base is rough because it refers to the earth, the roots, and the bark. Moving upward, the material thins into the geometry of a cylinder, becoming smoother until it sheds its bark and its form, transforming into transparent sheets which, like the growth rings of trees, show the material transmutation which is intrinsic to its nature.

The wood of the tree can indeed dry out and burn; the sap is its blood, carrying water and nutrients, it can release oxygen into the air from the roots upwards, against gravity. Ale Senso believes, in short, that the Arvales celebrated “Nature”: a nature, however, that must be nurtured, guarded, and delicately guided according to its time.

The third trunk, the one in the middle, has an analog connection -a dynamo with a crank- which, when rotated, allows the trunk of blood and fire and the one of air and water to light up, and thus to act.

According to the artist: from ancient man to contemporary man, we have exposed and studied certain processes, unveiled portions of history, labeling and organizing them (perhaps); the sacrifices and benefits are many, even if not for everyone (yet), so the “how” largely proceeds, but the “who we are, why, and where we are going” remains. Acting is necessary.

Material used: PVC, PMMA, Extruded Polystyrene, Aluminum, Stainless Steel and Galvanized Steel, Printed PVC film, DC hand-crank generator, LEDs, powdered cementitious adhesive, plaster mesh, water-based bonding agent, water-based two-component paint.

Location: inside Parco Gioia, immediately above the fenced area of the Catacombs of Generosa.

Installed between November 6 and 8, 2025.

Photos of the artwork

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Or to learn more about the Sacred Grove of the Arvales:

The sanctuary, called lucus in the commentarii or acta (reports) of the Arvales, was a complex formed by various buildings sloping down along a north-south axis from the summit of the hill, known in modern times as Monte delle Piche, to the right bank of the Tiber:

• The upper part (lucus, sacred grove), with the the street via Campanapassing through it, included the temple (aedes) and the altar of the goddess within the grove itself, along with various minor altars.
• The intermediate part (ante lucum, in front of the sacred grove) with a second altar of the goddess, the Caesareum, and the tetrastylum.
• The lower part on the slopes of the hill with the papiliones, the balneum, and the circus.

The activities of the Arvales that did not involve contact with the goddess and were more related to the “human” aspect took place outside the sacred grove, such as body care in the papiliones, or the college meetings and sacrificial banquets in the Caesareum. The circus games, which were common to both men and gods at the same time, were also held ante lucum.

The most important part of the sacrifice to the goddess Dia took place in the sacred grove. From the morning of the second day of the Ambarvalia festivals, the magister (the supervisor) and the other Arval brethren gathered in front of the grove, 6 miles from Rome. The magister sacrificed two expiatory sows or porciliae piacolari -corresponding to our porchetta (roasted pig)- to preemptively appease the deity for any transgression against the sacred inviolability of the place in view of the pruning of its sacred trees (coinquere) and the work to be done -not better specified- (opus facere). Iron tools had to be used to clean the lucus and prune the trees, and touching iron was strictly forbidden, as it broadly underlined the prohibition of war or performing public executions not to stain with blood the pure, new seeds preserved in the temple and used in ceremonies to propitiate future good harvests. The Latin verb coinquere combined with lucum refers to containing its growth and cutting away a part of the grove itself. Therefore, these sacrifices (piacula) must have served to atone for the regular pruning of the lucus, as well as the work related to the celebration of the sacrificium (sacrifice) of the goddess Dia, which could not have been extensive due to the timing coinciding with the ceremonies. They must have been symbolic works that were themselves part of the ritual. From the reports we know that among the trees were laurels (laurus) and holm oaks (ilex); the wood from felled trees and branches was removed, cut, and burned to make fire during the sacrifices; dead or destroyed trees were replaced.

Beyond practical necessities, the piacula in the sacred grove were part of the day’s liturgical program, especially when connected with the sacrifice that the magister performed immediately afterward in the circus. Since the circus was a space common to gods and men, the pompa circensis (circus procession) emphasized the moment when the gods settled there before the spectacles, with their images shown on the track and spectators acclaiming the gods and those who run the circus games. Sacrifices were also offered in the circus. The ceremonies in the grove of the Arvales can be compared to the pompa, with the sacrificium of the magister, the applause of the participants, and the rites in honor of Dia, similar to those with which the gods were welcomed at the Circus Maximus.

While the circus is a space shared between gods and men, the grove is a sacred place belonging to the goddess. The primary meaning of lucus is clearing. Men had to “cut away” a part of the wood in front of the temple, which would annually be covered by spontaneously grown vegetation, to transform it into a clearing. Only authorized priests and attendants could enter the lucus, while participants remained outside the space reserved only for the deities. The ceremonies in the lucus thus had the dual aspect of a permanent area within a wood and the result of the necessary pruning as a ritual precaution when men wished to connect with the deity in her sacred place, where she manifested her presence in the human world.

Further expiatory sacrifices were performed for the engraving with iron tools of the inscriptions (the acta) on the marble surfaces of the temple of the goddess Dia, generally executed in March or April; or for unforeseen events such as a tree fallen due to wind, lightning strikes, or age; fires or collapses of the sacred buildings. In this case, a sow, a sheep, and a bull (suovetaurilia) were sacrificed, followed by the immolation of two cows in honor of the goddess Dia and two sheep for the other deities celebrated in the lucus, and then as many animals (verbaces) as the deified members of the imperial family, worshipped in another building of the complex and a stop for the Arvales’ processions, the Caesareum.

Reference Bibliography:
J. Scheid, s.v. Deae Diae lucus, in Lexicon Topographicum Urbis Romae. Suburbium, vol. II, Roma 2004, pp. 189-191

H. Broise, J. Scheid, Etude d’un cas. Le Lucus Deae Diae à , in Les bois sacrés, Atti del Colloquio Internazionale (Napoli, 1989), Napoli 1993, pp. 145-157

Link to learn more about the project and the other artworks created