Villa Romana del Casale

3,500 m2

The mosaic floors cover 3,500 square metres

The Villa Romana del Casale is a large and elaborate Roman villa about 3 kilometres from Piazza Armerina. Its Roman mosaics are the richest, largest and most varied collection that remains, according to the Grove Dictionary of Art, and the site was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997. The villa and its art date from the early fourth century AD. The floors cover some 3,500 square metres.

3,500square metres of mosaic and marble floors

A landslide

A landslide and floods buried the floors and kept them safe

The mosaics are unique in their excellent state of preservation because a landslide and floods covered the remains. The site was abandoned in the twelfth century after a landslide. The villa was also decorated with an extraordinary collection of frescoes, which covered the walls of the interior rooms and also the exterior walls.

The owner

Nobody knows for sure who owned it

The identity of the owner of the villa has long been debated. Some features, such as the Tetrarchic military insignia and the probable Tetrarchic date of the mosaics, have led scholars to suggest an imperial owner such as Maximian. Other scholars think the villa was the center of a great estate of a high-level senatorial aristocrat.

Why here

Sicily grew rich again in the fourth century, on grain

At the beginning of the fourth century rural Sicily entered a new period of prosperity. When Egyptian grain began to go to Constantinople, the new imperial capital, from 330, the provinces of Africa supplied grain to Italy, and Sicily became central to the new trade routes. The wealthier classes also began to abandon city life for their country estates.

After

A village called Platia grew around the villa

The complex remained inhabited for at least 150 years. A village grew around it called Platia, from the word palatium, meaning palace. In the fifth and sixth centuries the villa was fortified. It was damaged and perhaps destroyed during the Vandal invasion between 469 and 478, and the settlement was destroyed in 1160 during the reign of William I.