Villa Romana del Casale

The Villa Romana del Casale in Piazza Armerina, in the province of Enna, is the supreme example of a late-imperial Roman luxury villa.

It symbolizes the use of the territory by the Romans as the center of the great property on which the rural economy of the Western Empire was based.

It also testifies the mutual influences between cultures and exchanges in the ancient Mediterranean, between the Roman world and the North African area.

The splendid imperial villa is a magnificent rural residence, whose charm is mainly due to the enchanting mosaics.

Considered the most beautiful and best preserved in their kind. The result of a painstaking work made of clear and exciting images, they significantly embellish the remains of the sumptuous residence.

It was included in 1997 in the World Heritage List by UNESCO.

The Roman Villa del Casale is a late antique housing building.

Popularly defined villa despite not having the characteristics of the Roman extraurban villa but rather has more features of an imperial urban palace.

The discovery of the villa is due to Gino Vinicio Gentili, who in 1950 undertook the exploration following the reports of the inhabitants of the place.

Relying primarily on the style of the mosaics, the discoverer first dated the layout of the sumptuous house, built on an older farm, not before the middle of the fourth century.

Subsequently, the same scholar assigned the villa to the tetrarchy age. According to Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli, the villa is dated to the first quarter of the fourth century.

The examinations on the walls have dated the villa and the mosaics themselves to a succession of times that goes from about 320 to 370.

Four distinct areas have been identified among the remains of the villa:

• the monumental entrance with a horseshoe-shaped courtyard;
• the central body of the villa, built around a courtyard with a garden;
• a large room with three apses (trichora), preceded by an ovoid colonnade, around which there are several rooms;
• the spa complex.

In December 2012 the restoration works were completed, which for many years involved mosaics and wall paintings.