Sicily - Villa Romana del Casale

Monday, 19 September 2016

After lunch we visited the "Villa Romana del Casale". This villa was buried by a landslide, so it's many spectacular mosaic floors were well-preserved. The villa is a huge house, with very large rooms. Clearly it was owned by an extremely wealthy Roman landlord.

Many of the mosaics feature wild animals and hunting scenes. Was the owner a famous hunter?

Mosaics featuring people and animals were in public areas and living areas for the owners and guests.

Mosaics featuring geometrical designs were for servant quarters.

This fanciful mosaic was probably in the children's living quarters.

Exotic animals being loaded onto a ship.

An elephant being loaded on a ship. Images like this and the one above suggests that the villa owner may have been involved in importing exotic animals for gladiator events.

Perhaps the most startling mosaic is that of the "bikini" athletes. As you can see from the upper left corner, it was placed over an earlier mosaic.