Sicily. Villa Romana del Casale.

Villa del Casale was built at the turn of the 3-4 century AD. After the Romans, it was robbed by vandals and Ostrogoths, inhabited or at least partially used Byzantines, Saracens and Normans. Thus, the villa remained inhabited until in the middle of the 12th century a landslide from Mount Mangone covered the entire complex, preserving it with a stream of mud. Since the 17th century, the villa has been the object of illegal excavations, and at the end of the 19th century regular excavations began, but the main work was already done in the middle of the 20th century.

What is Villa del Casale? On the fertile Sicilian lands in the era of ancient Rome, there were huge estates called "latifundia", which in Latin means "spacious farm". These agrarian complexes on an industrial scale produced grain, olive oil or wine, ravaging small farms and growing wider and wider. Villa del Casale, obviously, was the administrative center of such a latifundia and suburban residence of its owner. Excavations of the middle of the 20th century under the guidance of Professor D.V. Gentile, opened the central - residential and representative - part of the villa area of ​​3500 square meters. m. But the production and auxiliary premises (stables, warehouses, dwellings of slaves) have yet to be unearthed.

The size of the villa, the volume and the grandeur of the artistic decoration, from which only the floor mosaics remained, indicate that the villa undoubtedly belonged to the representatives of the highest class of the Roman Empire. Among its potential owners are called various consuls, senators, governors and prefects, whose names, alas, do not tell me anything. So, without a doubt, the most famous candidate for the role of the owner of the villa is Emperor Maximian, co-ruler of Diocletian. In favor of this version says not only the truly imperial luxury of decoration, but also some fine details, which I will mention in the course of the narrative.

Before visiting, I would recommend looking at the plan of the villa to represent it as a whole, rather than a chaotic set of rooms, and not to miss anything. We, for example, somehow chaotically examined the thermal complex and did not pay attention to the antique bathrooms. And for some reason they did not see a fairly extensive complex consisting of triclinium, oval peristyle and adjacent rooms. Most likely, it was still closed, because, it seems, we have covered all accessible corners.

The first bikini was invented back in ancient times.

Everything is incredibly beautiful.

Some of its parts, judging by the illustrations in the guidebook, are very interesting, we did not see, but what we saw made a grandiose impression on us.

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