Le vie dei Galli: migrazioni, mercenari e la nascita della Gallia Cisalpina | Gioal Canestrelli

Who were the Gauls who crossed the Alps, and what did it mean to travel those routes in Italy in the 5th and 4th centuries BC? In this lecture by Gioal Canestrelli at the Umbria Antica Festival 2025, we delve into the heart of one of the most profound transformations of pre-Roman Italy: the arrival and settlement of the Gauls on the peninsula, not as a sudden and isolated event, but as a long, complex process connected to a vast Mediterranean network. From the Alpine routes to the great rivers of the North, from the port of Adria to the emporium of Ancona, to the relationships with the Etruscan world and with the Syracuse of the Dionysians, the lecture reconstructs the Gauls' routes as corridors of mobility, mercenary trade, trade, and cultural exchange. The Alps no longer a barrier, but a bridge. The roads were not only theaters of war, but channels of ideas, political models, and social transformation. Through ancient sources—from Livy to Pliny—and crucial archaeological evidence, a picture emerges far from the image of a "barbarian invader": small armed groups, recruitment networks, integrations into Venetic, Etruscan, and Umbrian communities, Gallic swords forged in Rome, mixed families, identities that transformed over time. From the Sack of Rome to the birth of Cisalpine Gaul, from the necropolises of Montebello Vicentino to the inscribed cobblestones of Padua, this conference shows how the routes traveled by the Gauls contributed to redrawing the balance of power in ancient Italy, intertwining conflict and integration in a complex and surprisingly timely historical process. Because understanding the routes of the Gauls means understanding an Italy before Rome: mobile, fluid, connected.