Fabulae Romanae is a body of work by the artist duo Lucy + Jorge Orta that takes the viewer on a symbolic journey across the city of Rome, based on archaeological and historical research conducted by the artists and their observations on the cultural and social map of the city and its seven hills. Starting out from the most cherished form of the artist duo’s language, the tent or Dome Dwelling, and accompanied by the protagonists of their research, the Spirits, who take on the form of ethereal and mysterious figures that inhabit the city. The installation utilizes the MAXXI and the central role it plays in the contemporary life of the city as hub of an imaginary map that traces completely new routes through the city. Different physical and mental routes between the ways of life of a present in a continual state of flux and the ancient urban fabric. The city becomes destination and point of departure, traversed and interpreted as a multiethnic and inclusive place of welcome, where the trajectories of aesthetic and ethical values overlap. However, the significance of the project is given a fundamental twist by the performance that sees seven spirits/sentinels make their way across the city to arrive at the museum and guard the Domes. Simulacra, exhibits of the seven hills, as well as an allusion not just to the perfect shape of the dome but also to the primordial form of human shelter. This publication brings together the installation of Lucy + Jorge Orta’s work in MAXXI, the National Museum of XXI Century Arts in Rome, and the video performance in which the contemporary sentinel Spirits silently explore the Roman city accompanied by the poetic verses of Mario Petrucci: we encounter the Traveller under the Castel Sant’Angelo bridge and in the back streets of Trastevere; the Observer overlooking the Sacro Cuore in Trinità dei Monti and the Isola Tiberina; the Tunneller and the Myth Maker in the Villa Gregoriana Park; the Flying Man, Char-iot Rider, Memory Man, Bale Maker…