We didn’t know much about Piazza Armerina until we looked for archaeological sites to visit within driving distance of us in Sicily. The guidebook indicated interesting mosaics at the Villa Romana de Casale near the town of Piazza Armerina. The mosaic floors of this villa, owner unknown but possibly the Emperor Maximian (250-310 AD), are wonderfully detailed. We’ve never seen anything like them in all our Italian travels. Why isn’t this site better known? OK, there were ten tour buses parked at the site when we left at 3:30 pm. But seriously, I had heard very little about this particular site and the mosaics are unparalleled.
Other mosaics include various ways of hunting (nets, clubs), cherubs fishing, boats, children riding animal-drawn carts, children being chased by the animals they were pursuing, and the legend of Anios, who won a music contest in Sicily, was robbed by sailors on his trip home and thrown overboard only to be saved by a dolphin. Areas that were closed during our visit show people getting a mᴀssage in the bath complex, and the twelve labors of Hercules in a large atrium.
Here are a few details. There are over 4,000 sq meters of mosaic floors in the Villa Romana. Some mosaics are so fine that they average 36,000 tesserae (pieces) per sq meter. The mosaics at the Villa Romana are considered to be Romano-African in style, and some may have been made in sections in north Africa (Libya, where there were large Roman colonies, for example) and shipped by boat to Sicily. The putative owner of the villa, Maximian, was known as a soldier and hunter rather than a statesman, interests that the mosaics support.
Another piece of evidence that is used to ᴀssociate the structure with an emperor is the decoration of the room called “The Circus”. It depicts horse races around a track from the perspective of the emperor’s box at the end of the arena, where nobles look on from the sides.
