Villa Romana Del Casale

Villa Romana Del Casale is considered one of the finest remnants of the Roman Empire. It was specifically built in the middle of nowhere (then and now) around 300 C.E. during the fall of the Empire. At that time, the Roman elites, recognizing that the empire was falling, were building their palaces away from the center of the impending chaos. This villa was built with 37,000 square feet of mosaics -- essentially every floor in the place was covered. And, since the site is really in the middle of nowhere, and the area was sealed off by an earthquake in the 1300's, the villa avoided the fate of being looted and many of the mosaics remain.

There really is no way to adequately describe this location. It is really large and contains a lot of good explanations of the themes of the mosaics and guesses at the uses of the various rooms (based in part on the idea that rooms for servants only had simple, geometrical mosaics, while rooms for the owner/guests contain more elaborate mosaics). So, here are just a few pictures. Remember, that these photos are of mosaics, which themselves are formed from a large number of really small square tiles. Think about the time it took to design and create these!

The villa has an interior courtyard with a repeating pattern of animal mosaics all the way around:

In a giant hall, there is a 200-foot-long mosaic showing a hunt for wild animals, which has led experts to hypothesize that the owner of the villa was an importer of exotic animals:

Other mosaics include those picturing humans, including a room-size mosaic of female athletes competing in a variety of sports:

Others show mythical figures and events (here we seem to have cupids fishing, for whatever reason).

This is really a site that is much better in person than in pictures, and even though it is a bit out of the way, we definitely recommend a visit if you are in Sicily.

Hasta pronto,

Jeff and Shana