Villa Romana del Casale History

Three km (1.8 miles) outside Piazza Armerina, in a verdant valley of pines, elm trees, poplars, hazels, the most famous monumental complex well known as Villa Romana del Casale is located. This is a luxurious habitation, recently recognized by Unesco as World Heritage Site. It's near to a stream, that becomes Gela river further away, on the rests of a previous rustic settlement. During the twenties, thirties and forties of the last century the first inspections were carry out and with the excavations of fifties the whole monument was discovered. The late-Roman villa, completely uncovered (aside from the pars fructuaria that has been searched in 2004 in the east side of the main entry) has a defined planimetry consisting of four groups of rooms with galleries, peristyles, courts and thermal areas: it's a big complex of buildings in which we find a pleasant sinuosity, differences in level, exedras, stairs and asymmetries that obeyed above all to a specific function. The lower level is made up of a thermal complex and the great exedra latrine; the second level includes the peristyle and the areas of stay; the third one comprises a three apses hall and the opposite xystus; then there is a fourth group of buildings that is made up of private apartments and the basilican room that is opened on a long ambulatory.