Villa in the Casale district near Piazza Armerina
Province Description
Sicily, the largest island in the Mediterranean, was colonised by Greeks from the later eighth century B. C., with Syracuse becoming the largest and most powerful Greek polis; in time most of the indigenous settlements of the interior also became profoundly Hellenized. The western tip of the island was settled by Phoenicians and later became an outpost of Carthaginian control. In the third century B. C. Sicily became embroiled in the First Punic War which resulted in Rome's acquisition of the island as its first overseas provincia in 241 B. C.; in 211 B. C. Sicily was above all famed for its agricultural fertility and its capacity to produce exceptional grain yields (wheat and barley), and to a lesser extent wine. By the time of the Roman Empire the principal flourishing cities were located on the coast, with much of the interior given over to scattered agricultural villages, villas and farms.
Region
Location
Garden
Villa, in the Casale district near Piazza Armerina
Keywords
Garden Description
The sumptuous fourth-century villa has, not surprisingly, a large and most elaborately-shaped pool at the center of its main peristyle (Farrar Type G: Fig. ): it consists of a rectangular central basin with outward-curving recesses in the middle of the long sides, and two independent demi-lune pools (i.e. with one straight and one curved side, but enclosing overall less than a semicircle) at either end of the short sides; the whole is twenty meters long and nine meters wide (15 on Fig. 12). Its exterior was veneered in marble; the interior was mosaic-lined, with fish depicted on the edge above the water line, and plain tessellation below. Water played from a fountain at the center of the pool, where a small octagonal base was furnished with a vertical lead pipe. The demi-lune pools were wholly marble-lined. A headless marble statuette of a cupid (Fig. 13) and the legs of a second were found in the larger basin: they must have formed a matching pair of statues, set on the pedestals found at either end of the pool. The marble head of a curly-haired young man was also found in the western demi-lune basin (Fig. 14). Nothing is known of the presumed garden surrounding this elaborate pool, but marble slabs set between the columns of the peristyle to restrict access to the central area were carved with stylised dolphins (Fig. 15), and a marble table-support carved with the customary feline on its front face, which was found in the southern peristyle corridor, might also conceivably have come from the garden (Fig. 16). The elliptical court (41) in front of the three-apsed banqueting hall was also provided with two small fountains as well as an elaborate water feature with niches (a nymphaeum) at its west end, but it had no garden, as the area was mosaic-paved (unless the latter is secondary).
Plans
Images
Bibliography
A. Carandini, A. Ricci and M. De Vos, Filosofiana. La villa di Piazza Armerina, Palermo 1982, pp. 126-8 (worldcat)
G. V. Gentili, La villa romana di Piazza Armerina Palazzo Erculio, Osimo, 1 (1999): 79-83; 2 (1999): 25-8 (worldcat)
R. J. A. Wilson, in G. C. M. Jansen (ed.), Cura aquarum in Sicilia: Proceedings of the Tenth International Congress on the History of Water Management and Hydraulic Engineering in the Mediterranean Region, Syracuse, May 16-22, 1998 [Bulletin Antieke Beschaving Supplement 5], Leiden: Stichtung BABesch 2000 [publ. 2001]: 22-23).(worldcat)