is a Roman villa located about 5km outside the town of Piazza Armerina. It contains the richest, largest and most complex collection of Roman mosaics in the world.[1] It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Plan
Plan
Famous "bikini girls" mosaic showing women exercising
Famous "bikini girls" mosaic showing women exercising
"Bikini girl" mosaic
"Bikini girl" mosaic
The Villa was constructed on the remains of an older villa in the first quarter of the fourth century A.D., probably as the center of a huge latifundium covering the entire surrounding area. How long the villa kept this role is not known, maybe for less that 150 years, but the complex remained inhabited and a village grew around it, named Platia, derived from the word palatium (palace). It was damaged, maybe destroyed during the domination of the Vandals and the Visigoths, but the buildings remained in use, at least in part, during the Byzantine and Arab period. The site was finally abandoned for good when a landslide covered the villa in the 12th century AD, and remaining inhabitants moved to the current location of Piazza Armerina.
The existence of the villa was almost entirely forgotten (some of the tallest parts have always been above ground) and the area used for cultivation. Pieces of mosaics and some columns were found early in the 19th century, and some excavations were carried out later in that century, but the first serious excavations were performed by Paolo Orsi in 1929, and later by Giuseppe Cultrera in 1935-39. The latest major excavations were in the period 1950-60 by Gino Vinicio Gentili after which the current cover was built. A few very localized excavations have been performed in the 1970s by Andrea Carandini.
In late antiquity most of the Sicilian hinterland was partitioned into huge agricultural estates called "latifundia" (sing. "latifundium"). The size of the villa and the amount and quality of its artwork indicate that it was the center of such a latifundium, whose owner was probably a member of senatorial class if not of the imperial family itself, i.e., the absolute upper class of the Roman Empire.
The villa evidently served several purposes. It contained some rooms that were clearly residential, others that certainly had official purposes, and a number of rooms of as yet unknown intended use, though they were definitely not built for commercial or production reasons. The villa would probably have been the permanent or semi-permanent residence of the owner; it would have been where the owner, in his role as patron, received his local clients; and it would have functioned as the administrative center of the latifundium.
Currently, only the manorial portions of the complex have been excavated. The ancillary structures - housing for the slaves, workshops, stables, etc. have not yet been located.
The villa was a single-story building, centered on the peristyle, around which almost all the main public and private rooms were organized. Entrance to the peristyle is via the atrium from the West, with the thermal baths to the Northwest; service rooms and probably guest rooms to the North; private apartments and a huge basilica to the East; and rooms of unknown purpose to the South. Somewhat detached, almost as an afterthought, is the separate area to the South. containing the elliptical peristyle, service rooms, and a huge triclinium.
Virtual Tour su:http://www.siciliasud.it/luoghi-c-169-tabella-luoghi.html
The castle's origins are related to a fortress erected in the 1st millennium BC by the Sicani at the foundation of the ancient Henna, on a hill at 970 m over the sea level. It remained a key possession in the subsequent history of the island, and the Romans were able to conquer it only by passing through its sewer network.
LA MASSERIA