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Orbe-Boscéaz, also named Boscéay, is an archaeological site located at the territory of the town of Orbe (Vaud). On the site of Boscéaz, five pavilions protect the largest site of Roman mosaic in Switzerland. These mosaics decorated a vast Roman villa built between the first and the third century AD, including private baths and a temple dedicated to Mithra.
The first known mosaics are discovered in 1841. Between 1986 and 2004, the villa was a field school for students in archaeology of université de Lausanne. These excavations allowed the study of the whole residential part of the domain (including the discovery of the ninth mosaic, now being restored). They also allowed to determine that the site was occupied since the Neolithic, but also during the Bronze Age and the Iron Age.
The whole site is classified by the Swiss Inventory of Cultural Property of National and Regional Significance. A welcome center houses a scale model of the villa, an introduction video and a shop.
References:The Villa d'Este is a 16th-century villa in Tivoli, near Rome, famous for its terraced hillside Italian Renaissance garden and especially for its profusion of fountains: the extraordinary system contains fifty-one fountains and nymphaeums, 398 spouts, 364 water jets, 64 waterfalls, and 220 basins, fed by 875 meters of canals, channels and cascades, and all working entirely by the force of gravity, without pumps. It is now an Italian state museum, and is listed as a UNESCO world heritage site.
Tivoli had been a popular summer residence since ancient Roman times due to its altitude, cooler temperatures and its proximity to the Villa Hadriana, the summer residence of the Emperor Hadrian I.
The Villa was commissioned by Cardinal Ippolito II d'Este (1509-1572), second son of Alfonso I d'Este, the Duke of Ferrara and grandson of Pope Alexander VI, along with Lucrezia Borgia.