A.M. Reggiani operating with the Institutions in the area. The route of the Foundation started with the approval of the Law 18/2006 by the Friuli-Venezia Giulia Regional Council, but the idea of an Institution for Aquileia traces back until the early sixties of the last century. Indeed, the project has come to life thanks to the funds made available by the FriuliVenezia Giulia Region.
Recovering of the ancient memories is a hard job, but an essential requirement to increase their value; as a matter of fact, although no protocols are at work about “the re-use of the antique ruins”, many people agree on the opportunity to avoid, in any case, the strict confinement of the archaeological sites, which would cause the lapse of interest and their unavoidable decay.
Reflecting about the sense of the fragmented archaeological systems is a part of the so-called “non-place”, as it was called - in the realm of the debates about the use of the Urban Archaeology – the area devoted to the archaeological memories; such a definition is an anthropological one and is due to Marc Augé about the anonymous places in the contemporary society: railway stations, airports, motorways. The same concept can be extended to different cultural contexts, wherever a sort of „religious space‟ emerges, as it can happen for a Museum or an archaeological site, which paradoxically may become anonymous places, crowded by similar - but lonely - individuals.
In the light of the previous reflections, the goal of the Aquileia Foundation is fully integrating the archaeological area into the surroundings, by means of a management plan, i.e., the tool UNESCO required to include the city into the World Heritage List, with the aim of achieving an integrated governance of the region. In fact, the full plan combines a strategic economic plan as well as those for communication and the territorial enhancement.
Final observations The path outlined for Aquileia envisages an innovative approach, in which the ancient and modern cities coexist and permeate each other. The area that suffered from a period of expropriations - to which did not follow an equivalent period of „Great Works‟ - can be that ideal site to experiment novel projects: in this way, increasing the value of the area can be achieved both by structural interventions – restorations, coverings, reconstructions – and Foreword