The artwork “The Rites” (I Riti) 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 the 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 installation is made of 12 engraved transparent slabs that depict the ritual activities performed by the Arval priests during the festivals dedicated to the goddess Dia, the so-called Ambarvalia. These festivals aimed to ensure a good grain harvest and were celebrated both in the city and here in Magliana Vecchia, in the sanctuary of the goddess Dia and in the sacred grove (lucus). These festivities lasted 3 days and fell on different dates: May 17th, 19th, and 20th in even years, and May 27th, 29th, and 30th in odd years.
Thanks to the records (acta) which still survive, we know perfectly the actions, times, and places that framed the Arvales’ activities. Unlike the celebrations of other cults in ancient Rome, of which few details remain, the inscribed descriptions by the Arval brethren are so numerous and detailed that they allow to reconstruct precisely all phases of the celebrations.
The slabs created by Ale Senso depict these different phases of the rite, in a row from left to right. The artist chose to use the transparency of the slabs to reflect the engraved silhouettes: during the day with sunlight, and at night with a lighting system that reflects the drawings onto the wall behind. Deliberately, these representations appear opaque and blurry, signs of a past that is being recalled (rievocato) close to the places that hosted this important evidence of the activities of the Arval brethen.
The illumination system has a minimal environmental impact. Simply press the button near the artwork’s plaque to activate the lamps: the light passes through the slabs from left to right, following the same order as their placement on the bases, projecting the shadow of a single image onto the wall at a time, greatly enlarged and blurred.
During the lighting cycle, holding down the button for longer locks the currently illuminated image. Once the button is released, the cycle resumes after a few moments.
For the illustrations, the artist was inspired by one of the most important and recent studies on the subject: J. Scheid, Romulus et ses frères. Le college des Frères Arvales, modèle de culte public dans la [illegible] des empereurş, EFR 275, Roma 1990.
Materials Used: painted wooden base. Tablets in expanded polystyrene structure, reinforced with a phenolic plywood core, covered with cement-based tile adhesive. Painted with enamel paint. Assembly with specific adhesive. Anchoring to the base via bolts and nuts. Original drawings transferred via UV printing onto transparent styrene acrylonitrile panels, finished with painting intervention.
Lights: single high-brightness LED light source. Aluminum and steel spotlight body. LED activation controlled by an Arduino Mega 2560 microcontroller, activated by pressing a dedicated button operating at extra-low safety voltage.
Location: Via delle Catacombe di Generosa n. 41.
Installed between July 18 and September 7, 2025.
Photos of the artwork
To learn more about the project and the other artworks
Or to learn more about the individual rites of the Arvales and see the original images created by Ale Senso:
Sacrifice of the Magister
On the first day, the ceremonies took place in Rome in the residence of the magister (presiding officer) in charge that year (domi, at home), or at the imperial palace when the emperor himself was the magister. Sacrifices with incense and other rites were performed before and during a banquet. At dawn, the magister began the sacrificial rite by offering incense and wine, then he touched the green and dry cereals -ripe- (fruges), tho show them to to the goddess Dia.
Anointing of the Statue of Dia
The magister anointed the statue (simulacrum) of the goddess Dia with scented oils. The other priests, wearing the toga praetexta (adorned at the lower edge) and bands, also performed sacrifices with incense and wine and touched green and dry cereals (fruges) -embodying the harvests of the previous year and the seasonal one- before anointing the statue with perfumes. They then proceeded to the public baths (balneum). After noon, they washed their hands and, wearing a white dining robe, banqueted lying on triclinia (couches). After the banquet, they washed their hands again, received offerings from their assistants, sacrificed those offerings with incense and wine, and subsequently received scented oils and banquet wreaths. The ceremony concluded by stripping a rose of its petals. Behind the statue of Dia is the Gemini constellation, because the rites began on the ninth day after the rising of this constellation, on May 27th according to the Julian calendar (even Varronian year) or May 17th (odd Varronian year). Since it was a movable feast, it had to be publicly announced each year.
Sacrifice of the Expiatory Sows
On the second day of the festivals, the priests moved to the lucus deae Diae, the sacred grove 6 miles from Rome, today located in Magliana Vecchia. Early in the morning, the magister offered on an altar 2 expiatory sows or porciliae piacolares - which correspond to our modern porchette (spilt roasted pork)- to preemptively placate the divinity for any transgression against the sacred inviolability of the place, in view of the pruning of its sacred trees and the other works to be performed.
Pruning of the Sacred Grove
Pruning the trees was part of the rite, performed to prepare the location for the sacrifices by creating a clearing within the sacred grove, the so-called lucus. 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. For this purpose, the Arvales sacrificed two porcilia (our porchette), which they would eat during their ritual banquet.
Offering of the Cow
The magister went to the circus, another building within the sanctuary complex, to offer the goddess Dia a cow on a portable fireplace upon which a sod of grass had been placed. He then moved to the tetrastylum, another building in the complex, where the statues of the Roman emperors, portrayed as Arval brethren, were kept. Following this, the magister returned to the altar of Dia to offer her the viscera of the sows (exta) and to the circus to offer her those of the cow. He then had it recorded that he had correctly performed the rites and offerings just celebrated. After taking off his toga praetexta, he first went to the thermal complex (balneum) and then to his pavilion (papilio), a chamber located on the curved side of a monumental portico in front of the baths. Joining the brethren who had arrived from Rome in the meantime, they all took a bath together, dressed in the toga praetexta, and went to the tetrastylum where they sat on benches (subsellia). Here they had their participation in the rites recorded and consumed a ritual meal of bread, sangunculum (a dish based on blood), and pork meat from the sow.
Arval with white fillets and a wreath of corn
The brethren veiled their heads with a corner of the toga and worn a wreath made of corn (ear of wheat, spike of grain) tied with white fillets, which was their identifying element. The image is inspired by the portrait of the Emperor Antoninus Pius as an Arval, which is now preserved in the Musée du Louvre in Paris.
Procession of the Arvales
Making their way through the crowd, the Arval brethren moved from the other buildings of the sanctuary, which were located on the slope of the hill at the foot of the sacred grove, to ascend towards the high ground where the lucus deae Diae was situated (ad lucum…ascenderunt).
Sacrifice of the Lamb
The magister and his attendant flamen offered flatbreads and cakes (strues and fertum) in front of the Temple of the goddess Dia and then sacrificed a fat lamb (agna opìma). After offering the viscera of the lamb (exta), the brethren performed sacrifices with incense and wine to begin a new phase of the ritual. The afternoon ceremony was the most solemn, and we have a detailed description of it in the two slabs containing the account of the festival from the years 218 and 219 AD.
Meatballs and Flatbreads
The Arvales went into the temple and offered three times three meatballs made of flour, liver, and milk: the first three on a table to Dia; the second three twice on a sod of grass placed on the ground for Mater Larum (Acca, mother of the Lares, a goddess associated with Dia and connected to the soil like the Lares). Another three meatballs and three flatbreads were offered to Dia on the altar in front of the temple. Once again in the sanctuary, the brethren prayed over ollae (bulging terracotta pots) full of puls, a cereal soup that the priests poured onto the sloping ground in front of the temple, considering it the supper of the Mater Larum.
Bread topped with Laurel leaves
Inside the temple, the Arval brethren distributed loaves of bread topped with laurel leaves to the public slaves of the college and their other public freedman assistants. Both the bread and the puls (cereal soup) would have been cooked with the dried cereals from the previous year, alluding to a new good harvest.
Flamines in Front of the Temple of Dia
The magister and the flamen (priest) who was his attendant, standing outside the temple, sent two brethren with the public slaves to fetch green cereals. This was the beginning of the second part of the banquet of the goddesses, in which wine was exchanged for cereals (fruges). In this symposium, the magister, the flamen, and other brethren served each other wine with their right hand and took the fruges with their left, which they then gave to the slaves. The meaning of this rite was to offer wine in exchange for a good harvest. A further sacrifice followed on the altar, consisting of incense and sweet wine, along with baskets of cakes (panificia), typical of the symposium in which they had the goddess participate.
Wreath of corn
Inside the temple, the priests chanted the Carmen Arvale. Once the hymn was finished, the fratres supervised the opening of the temple, and upon receiving soaps with turnips (lomenta cum rapinis), they anointed the statues of the goddess Dia and Mater Larum with these rustic scented oils, also offering them lit candles. They stopped themselves in front of the open temple door, having offering wreaths brought to them, while the secretary mentioned the names of the different priests aloud. These priests touched the altar and put the wreaths, brought inside by the servants, upon the heads of the goddesses. All these elements pointed to the symposium understood as a sacred banquet, where the goddesses were crowned, sweet wine and confectionery were received, and poems were recited.
Reference Bibliography:
J. Scheid, Gli Arvali e il sito ad Deam Diam, in R. Friggeri, M. Magnani Clementi, C. Caruso, Terme di Diocleziano. Il chiostro piccolo della certosa di Santa Maria degli Angeli, Milano 2014
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