The villa in Desenzano was situated at the foot of a hillside slope, with the beach just a few meters away. Today, to get an overall view of the villa, one must use imagination to bring forth from the ruins the structures of the large and distinct building blocks dating back to the early 4th century AD, disregarding, at this first approach, all those elements that belong to earlier period dwellings, whose remains, arranged on lower levels, can be glimpsed here and there. At the entrance to the villa, there is a small museum with three rooms exhibiting materials from the excavations: among these are remains of statues and very interesting portraits as well as a press for squeezing grapes or olives. The villa consists of three sectors (A, B, C). The sector is arranged along an east-west axial direction – to the east there is an octagonal vestibule (1), from which one could access the beach and probably the small port; from the vestibule, you enter the peristyle (2), an internal courtyard surrounded on all sides by porticoes and decorated with statues; from the peristyle one enters the forcipe atrium (3) and then the triclinium (4), which was a representation room with three apses. The triclinium was covered by either a dome or a barrel vault roof. The rooms and peristyle were floored with mosaics that, featuring various geometric patterns and plant motifs, created color effects. Parts of this rich flooring are still visible today. In the atrium (3), there were four rectangles with mosaics depicting fishing scenes. Sector B underwent various transformations during the Roman era, from the Augustan age until the end of the 4th century AD, or even the beginning of the 5th century AD. In this sector, various rooms can be seen, whose directional axis is also aligned east to west, like that of sector A. The residential areas to the north (12a, 12b, 12c) have geometric mosaics whose style can be linked to that of the mosaics in sector A. They therefore date back to the late 3rd century or early 4th century AD. Later, at the end of the 4th century, there was a restructuring in this sector, in the southern part: some rooms arranged around an apse (13) are noted, which was at the end of a large, probably rectangular hall, of which only a small part is known so far. The apse was paved with rhomboid tiles forming a cube design seen in perspective. The same motif continued with polychrome tiles in the hall which likely extended to the beach. Sector C was among the most damaged by excavation interventions carried out in the 1970s. This new building, also oriented east to west, had rooms with marble slab floors and heating systems both under the floors and within the wall cavities. It is very likely that these were rooms with thermal functions.
Information on Roman Villa and Antiquarium
Via Crocefisso, 22
25015 Desenzano del Garda (Brescia)
0309143547
villaromana.desenzano@beniculturali.it
https://www.archeologica.lombardia.beniculturali.it
Source: MIBACT
