Alessandro Sebastiani

Writing a book is always emotional and deeply moving. The choice of topic remains tied both to professional passions and to private experiences, to stories of adventures, discoveries, and emotions connected to the self that could not otherwise find a voice in academic production.

I remember very clearly when my colleague Fabiana Fabbri and I decided to shape the volume on sanctuaries and votive deposits. I was in a hotel room in Bucharest, confined there in August 2021, desperately trying to renew my American visa and return to Buffalo. It was the summer after Covid and the lockdown, and the American embassies in Italy were still closed. Romania was the only possibility: a forced stay of fifteen days outside the Schengen area.

That far-from-pleasant retreat became the moment in which the volume was conceived, a book that was eventually published in 2025 as Sacred Landscapes in Central Italy: Votive Deposits and Sanctuaries (400 BC–AD 400), issued by Brepols in the Medito series.

(https://www.brepols.net/products/IS-9782503613666-1)

Like many edited volumes, it had a rather long gestation, due to the usual delays, the need to refine the language, and the painstaking work of layout and production. Yet when we finally held it in our hands, we knew it was a volume that would spark discussion. Votive deposits, sanctuaries, the production of the sacred, and the interaction with the landscape all found in it a first updated synthesis, ready to serve as the starting point for new research.

And that seems to have been exactly the case. The first review does justice to what we had imagined, produced, and published. It shows how believing in projects that may seem difficult, with many obstacles to overcome, can ultimately turn into a great satisfaction. My thanks go to Fabiana for being such a careful and meticulous scholar, attentive to detail and a profound expert on Etruscan and Roman religion. The authors of the various chapters proved professional and fully deserving of the praise dedicated to them in the review, capable of understanding the spirit of the book and of giving their time to the writing of their contributions. And my heartfelt thanks go to Rosie and to Brepols, who since 2018 have believed in the Medito series, in its editorial board, and in the projects we continue to develop.

See the review for the ‘Bryn Mawr Classical Review‘