Santa Maria Maggiore Tuscania
Tuscania sits in the province of Viterbo in northern Lazio — a small, ancient town that most visitors to Rome never reach. I visited during my years living there, drawn partly by the architecture and partly by something older. The Etruscans have always fascinated me. Their origins, their influence on Roman civilisation, and the way their culture was absorbed and then largely erased by the empire that succeeded them. Tuscania is one of the places where that story is still visible in the stone.
Santa Maria Maggiore
These images are of the Santa Maria Maggiore church — a Romanesque building constructed over the ancient Etruscan acropolis, incorporating fragments of the civilisation it replaced. That layering of history is present everywhere in Tuscania, but here it feels most concentrated. You are standing on ground that has been sacred for nearly three thousand years, the stones beneath your feet belonging to cultures separated by millennia.
Ancient Roots
Tuscania’s history begins in the 8th century BC as part of the Etruscan heartland, closely linked to the powerful city of Tarquinia. It was a prosperous settlement — surrounded by necropoleis with elaborate rock-cut tombs and sarcophagi, evidence of a culture with advanced ideas about art, religion, and the afterlife. Tuscania became a prominent member of the Etruscan League, the confederation of city states that dominated central Italy before Rome.
Situated on elevated terrain, it controlled vital trade routes and enjoyed natural defences that contributed to its prosperity. That geographical advantage facilitated trade and cultural exchange with neighbouring Etruscan cities, with the Greeks, and with the Phoenicians. The result was a cultural melting pot whose legacy runs deeper than the Roman history that eventually swallowed it.
What draws me to the Etruscans is precisely that erasure. Rome absorbed their engineering, their religious practices, their art — and then wrote them out of the story. Tuscania is a place where you can feel that gap. The churches built over the acropolis are beautiful, but they are also a statement of replacement. History as architecture.
For a black and white photographer, Tuscania rewards patience. The light in northern Lazio has a particular quality — hard and clear, casting deep shadows across ancient stone. Santa Maria Maggiore, with its carved Romanesque facade and the worn textures of two thousand years of weather, is exactly the kind of subject that monochrome handles best. Colour would be a distraction. The story is in the stone.
These images form part of my ongoing personal documentary project — black and white architecture and street photography from Italy, the UK, and beyond, running alongside my portrait work. Based in Sandwich, Kent, I work as a portrait and documentary photographer across the UK, London, and internationally. If you would like to discuss a commission or follow the documentary work, visit the Personal Observations gallery or get in touch directly.
Visceral, character-led portraits from honest, quiet human moments. Classical legacy portraiture for private commissions. International, UK, London, based in Sandwich, Kent.