In the diocese of Nomentum, the furthest part of Lower Sabina, thanks to its closeness to Rome the diffusion of Christianity was rather quick as proved by numerous material testimonies and documents connected to the evangelization of the Roman church and the existence of two main roads of communication, the Via Salaria and Via Nomentana, which had the function of arteries for  spreading religion. The diocese did not have, in the past, an organic tract, according to the work of Corrado Pala, no complex study exists of the historic-archeological evidence present. This contribution wishes to offer a critical picture and an updated documentation of the archeological finds in the territory, from the administrative point of view of the diocese of Nomentum in the period  that goes from the late ancient age to the high middle ages. Starting with modern cartography, the transformations over the centuries were examined, in order to arrive to the most ancient testimonies existing.

It was one of the most exposed territories for its position on the metropolitan hinterland, to the building speculation and to a noticeable entropic tension. One of the objectives was to  make a census of all the religious buildings and their position on an adequate map. This operation allowed us to reveal the total disappearance of entire complexes and, in respect to those still existing structures, the fragmentation of the existing data, which makes impossible an organic archeological synthesis. For the few structures above ground, we did a classification of the walls, an attempt to furnish a chronological useful key to the understanding of single monuments. The absence in most case, of the historical documentation did not allow necessary depth for the reconstruction of the dynamics of the foundation f the buildings and for a detailed  historic  placement.

The territory includes the modern places of Fonte Nuova, Tor Lupara, Mentana and Monterotondo, and  has no problems from the point of view of finding and tutelage of the areas which have been object of studies and  research by  many: Pala, Passigli, Quilici and Quilici Gigli, La Porta and Moscetti who offer an exhaustive cartography.

This high level of knowledge has not helped, however, with the territory in question, the loss of a large part of the documentation of its history and its origins,  thus to represent an emblematic model of the great deterioration to which an  historic environment can be subjected in the name of  mere quantitive  progress. The Nomentano territory, like all of those in the metropolitan belt, seems to be penalized by a situation that contrasts, in the city of Rome area, on one side the need for expansion , and on the other, the request for services to protect the monuments and the environment; needs that often come out in a not very positive way on the hinterland, destined to receive all the negative things that the city refuses.

With this work, a revision of the already existing studies, we wish to furnish a series of new considerations,  results of historic-topographic research. We have attempted to give an articulated  status  to the questions, with the most complete possible panorama  of the interpretations, of the hypothesis and of the  opinions  over more than two centuries of studies, putting special attention on the novelties  that have appeared in the latest years. I have elaborated, for this reason, the results of a research that  has included the reading, and often a re-reading, of those texts that speak of the territory, a revisiting of the cartographical patrimony and the existing documents of archives, as well as data, which has come out of the search activity.