Villa Romana del Tellaro

Noto, Italy

The Villa Romana del Tellaro is a Roman villa dating from the late Roman Empire. The remains of the villa were found in 1971 in a fertile agricultural area, on a low elevation near the Tellaro river.

The central building was constructed around a large peristyle. The section of the porch on the north side had a floor which was decorated with mosaics. They show laurel wreathes forming circles and octagons with geometric and floral motifs. They border two other rooms that retain figurative mosaics.

In the first of these rooms a very damaged mosaic contains a panel with scenes of the ransom of the body of Hector. In this scene Odysseus, Achilles and Diomedes, identified by inscriptions in Ancient Greek, are weighing the body of the hero. The figure of Priam is lost, but the legs of Hector's body can be seen partially on the right side of the scales. The gold of the ransom is visible on the left side. This event was not mentioned in the Iliad by Homer and is probably derived from a tragedy of Aeschylus. The mosaic floor in the second room shows a hunting scene with a banquet in the open air among the trees. The female figure in the scene is the personification of Africa.

The scenes on the mosaic found in the second room are reminiscent of the mosaics in the Villa Romana del Casale near Piazza Armerina. However, this mosaic has more stylized figures and two-dimensional, uncertain proportions, making the effect very different. The mosaics were probably the work of craftsmen from North Africa. Based on numismatic evidence, they were made in the second half of the fourth century CE.

The villa has seen renewed interest in recent years, mainly due to a series of reconstruction projects and redevelopment of the site. In 2008, over thirty years after the excavations, it was finally inaugurated and made accessible to the public.

References:

Comments

Your name



Address

Noto, Italy
See all sites in Noto

Details

Founded: 4th century AD
Category: Prehistoric and archaeological sites in Italy

More Information

en.wikipedia.org

Rating

4.2/5 (based on Google user reviews)

User Reviews

Gregory Tucker (3 years ago)
A hidden gem! Small site and museum but beautiful mosaics. The entry fee of 8€ was far too high though..
1Lauchtravels (4 years ago)
Not much there but some nice mosaics but it was for free so all good
Veronika Ženíšková (4 years ago)
Small, but a few nicely preserved mosaics
Christian Ansorge (4 years ago)
Small but interesting exhibition. I liked most of all that it also was done in English.
Powered by Google

Featured Historic Landmarks, Sites & Buildings

Historic Site of the week

Knap of Howar

At Knap of Howar on the island of Papa Westray, a Neolithic farmstead may be the oldest preserved stone house in northern Europe. Radiocarbon dating shows that it was occupied from 3700 BC to 2800 BC, earlier than the similar houses in the settlement at Skara Brae on the Orkney Mainland.

The farmstead consists of two adjacent rounded rectangular thick-walled buildings with very low doorways facing the sea. The larger and older structure is linked by a low passageway to the other building, which has been interpreted as a workshop or a second house. They were constructed on an earlier midden, and were surrounded by midden material which has protected them. There are no windows; the structures were presumably lit by fire, with a hole in the roof to let out smoke. Though they now stand close to the shore, they would have originally lain inland.