The myth of Aeneas and Lavinium present some distinctive features that can "hit" the collective consciousness with symbolic elements of extraordinary suggestion, able to "impress" a very large audience. This is because they are not substantially linked to specific characteristics (age, level of education, etc.), and because they carry symbolic meanings of universal value. They are able therefore to be fully understood in all the cultural and geographical contexts of the globalized world.

Meanwhile, the Myth of Aeneas, like all the myths of the Greco-Roman tradition, as well as other cultural traditions, is the product of the dematerialization of culture and the vision of the world.  It is a dematerialization that is far from indifferent to ethical and political cultural contents: its genesis and its continuous metamorphosis over the centuries is a proof of this. There are countless reinterpretations of myths, in a synchronic dimension - think of the different interpretations of the myth of Aeneas both in classical Greek writers and in Latin authors - and in a diachronic dimension - if we consider that many authors still in the Middle Ages linked the genesis of the European peoples to the Trojan race. Geoffrey of Monmouth, still in the twelfth century, believed Britons descended from them; Trojan origins are elaborated by Paul the Deacon, active at the court of Charlemagne, for the Carolingians, within a vast political and literary production concerning the time line from the Gauls to the Franks. The stories also go so far as to postulate a sort of cousin relationship between the Franks and the Turks, as descendants of Troilus, son of Priam, as the first would have had as ancestor Hector.

The reinterpretation of the myth of Aeneas and the Trojan descent continued over the centuries postulating new progenitures of European nations and aristocratic families, reaching the threshold of 1800.

The dematerialization of reality and the ability to transform the story, to take on new symbolic and historical-political meanings, therefore represent a very important dimension of the Myth of Aeneas and in general of myths: an aspect that makes it of specific interest to approach the world of cultural production that passes through the digital dematerialization of cultural content.

Nonetheless, the approach is not equal: the Myth of Aeneas is, since its genesis, the bearer of values that place man and nature at the center. Aeneas was born from the world of the gods, because he was the son of Venus. The Olympus pagan world was immaterial and eternal, although capable of manifesting himself in the earthly world and in nature, and subject as well to human defects and capriciousness. In fact, Aeneas was also the son of the “aristocratic” shepherd Anchises. The Trojan hero grows up "getting closer" to the world of nature, because bred by the nymphs; and then returns to the gathering of men, participating in the events of the City of Troy.

From dematerialization of the specific divine dimension to the return to human life in nature and society: it is a path that has much to teach in the current phase of digitalization and dematerialization of the world. If we want to bring this process back to a humanistic dimension and not to distance man from himself.

This aspect therefore makes the Myth of Aeneas a formidable content to give value to the world of digital productions and computer globalization.

Myth therefore offers the possibility of a "stratified archive" of content that can be reproduced in the contemporary world, giving it high meanings, in the world of technology for digital communication and information.

The everlasting fire

Aeneas escapes from Troy, with Anchises and Ascanius, taking with him the Palladium that guards the fire of invincibility. Odysseus had infiltrated the walls of Troy with a Horse because only the removal of the fire would allow the Greeks to conquer the city. On the contrary, in the Roman story the fire reappears in the hands of the Trojan fugitives to be led to Lavinium and become the sacred fire of Rome, of the Penates - gods of the fireplace – of the Vestals, the fire was guarded in the temple of Vesta.

The eternal fire is therefore a symbolic and iconographic element inherent to the Myth of Aeneas and the origins of Rome. An element with great capacity for suggestion and symbolic value that can be understood and felt in a universalistic way.

The journey: Aeneas and the Trojans, a Mediterranean and European itinerary

The character of Aeneas has a very limited role in the Homeric poems, where he is shown as a weak warrior, which the gods save only because he carries the mission of giving life to a new lineage of Trojan kings. The Latin writers exalt the role of Aeneas as the founder of a new lineage, which will obviously be the Roman one, and that through the Trojan hero will guarantee divine origins and the assimilation of the cultural significance of Greece and Asia Minor.

It is an epic figure of the hero who stands out in his embodiment not the warrior qualities of other Homeric heroes (the courage, fury and invincibility of Achilles), but the qualities of humanity, stoicism, concreteness, adaptability, resourcefulness. It makes it so close to contemporary sensibility: symbol of our status as refugees in the existence for the poet Caproni. He is the precursor of refugees as a fugitive from Troy on fire, Aeneas has even been defined as the ideal figure of the modern entrepreneur[1].

However, it will take a long journey in the Mediterranean: Aeneas will touch the coasts of Africa and the Balkans, before reaching Castro, Puglia and then Lavinium.

The dimension of the journey is therefore central in the Myth of Aeneas and also functional to the historical and political dimension of many places and peoples, so much so that they multiply over the centuries, even after the Virgilian story the places touched by Aeneas and the Trojans, to whom is attributed the foundation of countless Mediterranean cities (Venice, Pisa, Palermo, Brindisi, Aquileia, Verona, Vercelli, Cremona, etc.).

The journey is therefore – it could not be otherwise - one of the founding themes of the Myth of Aeneas. A journey of outward and renewal, to discover and generate the new in the continuity of history, not a return journey to complete a path and reckon with the usurpers, as in the case of Ulysses.

Lines of work for communication and fund raising

There are many themes on which to focus our attention for a communication activity; among these appear more directly related to the opportunities for fund raising from the world of profit and companies (or foundations related to them) the three themes above mentioned:

1. The eternal Fire (light, energy, fireplace);
2. Travel (tourism and geopolitics);
3. Dematerialisation (Internet and virtual reality and augmented reality productions).

[1] Lectio Magistralis by Marc Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, at Luiss University, on 29^th  August 2016: "Aeneas never gives up, but goes on: mission, ability to collaborate, perseverance, in this history there are all the elements of a great entrepreneur".