La villa of Desenzano was located at the foot of a hillside slope and the beach was a few meters from it. Those who today want to have an overall view of the villa must, using their imagination, bring out from the complex of ruins the structures of the large and distinct blocks of buildings dating back to the early 4th century AD, and not take into account, in this first approach, all those elements that date back to dwellings of earlier periods, whose remains, arranged on lower levels, can be glimpsed here and there. At the entrance of the villa, a small museum is arranged that exhibits materials from the excavations in three rooms: among these there are remains of statues and very interesting portraits as well as a press for squeezing grapes or olives. The villa is composed of three sectors (A,B,C). The sector is arranged along the east-west axial direction – to the east there is an octagonal vestibule (1), from which access was then gained to the beach and, probably, to the small port; from the vestibule you enter the peristyle (2), an internal courtyard that was surrounded on all sides by porticoes and decorated with statues; from the peristyle you access the atrium with a forcipe (3) and then to the triclinium (4), which was a representative room with three apses. The triclinium was covered by a dome roof or a barrel vault. The rooms and the peristyle were paved with mosaics which, with a variety of geometric schemes and plant motifs, created chromatic effects. Some remaining parts of this rich flooring can still be seen. In the atrium (3) there were four rectangles with mosaics representing fishing scenes. Sector B underwent various transformations in the Roman age, from the Augustan age until the end of the 4th century AD, if not even the beginning of the 5th century AD. In this sector, several rooms are observed whose directional axis is arranged from east to west, like that of sector A. The residential rooms to the north (12a, 12b, 12c) have geometric mosaics whose style can be linked to that of the mosaics of sector A. They therefore date back to the end of the 3rd century or beginning of the 4th century AD. Subsequently, 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) can be noticed, which was at the end of a large probably rectangular hall, of which until now only a small part is known. The apse was paved with rhomboid tiles forming a design of cubes seen in perspective. The same motif continued with multicolored tiles in the hall which must have reached the beach. Sector C was among the most damaged by the leveling operations carried out in the Seventies. This new building, also oriented from east to west, had rooms with marble slab flooring and heating systems both under the floors and in the wall cavities. We are very likely facing rooms with thermal functions.
Information about the 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
