Roman floor mosaics so extraordinary they were hidden under mud for 700 years
Piazza Armerina is a handsome Baroque hill town in central Sicily, but the reason the world comes here is 5km away: the Villa Romana del Casale, a late-Roman imperial hunting lodge whose 3,500 square metres of intact polychrome floor mosaics are among the finest in the world and a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1997. The mosaics depict hunting scenes, mythological episodes, chariot races, and — most famously — a panel of young women in what appear to be bikinis performing athletic exercises, a scene so incongruous and detailed that it caused controversy when excavated. The villa was abandon…
The Villa Romana del Casale was probably built between the late 3rd and early 4th centuries AD, possibly as a hunting retreat for Emperor Maximian or another member of the tetrarchy. It was occupied continuously through the Byzantine and Arab periods before being buried by a landslide around 1161. The hilltop town of Piazza Armerina itself was founded by the Normans in the 12th century using stones from nearby ancient settlements; its Cathedral (1627) contains a venerated Byzantine icon of the Madonna said to have been sent by Pope Nicholas II to Count Roger I in the 11th century.