Da villa tardoantica a cantiere altomedievale. La trasformazione di Aiano (San Gimignano, Siena)
(2023) Amoenitas. Rivista internazionale di studi miscellanei sulla villa romana antica — Vol. XI, n° néant, p. 143 (2023)
Files
Cavalieri.pdf
first edition
Open Access - Adobe PDF
- 24.18 MB
Details
- Authors
- Abstract
- Since 2005 a luxurious Roman villa in Aiano (San Gimignano, si, Italy) has been extensively excavated. The villa was partly discovered during the numerous archaeological campaigns carried out by a Belgian-Italian team coordinated by the Université catholique de Louvain (UCLouvain, Belgium) as part of the international project ‘VII REGIO. The Elsa Valley during Roman Age and Late Antiquity’. The villa in Aiano is one of the few rural sites in Roman Etruria where we can trace an extraordinary long life; it is also an example of the wealthy rural residences of Central Italy belonging to late-antique aristocracy, and dating IV-VII c. AD. The building complex (end of the iii-beginning of the IV c. AD), was enriched with polylobate ambulatio surrounding a hexalobate hall (end of the IV-beginning of the V c. AD). This room underwent various building phases that led to its current triapsidal appearance. The villa was abandoned at the end of the V century ad, and after a short time some production workshops were established in its disused rooms, where a very organised recycling system was set up to recuperate all the decorations from the previous residential complex. The site was then definitively abandoned in the mid-VII century AD. The excavated area is made up of about 3,500 sq.m. (in 2022) of the estimated surface of more than 10,000 of the whole site. That confirms the great archaeological interest and the remarkable state of preservation of this monumental residential complex. During its lifespan (end of iii-second half of V c. AD), the residential area of the villa (pars dominica) presented a plan that was unique in its own way. It features particularly opulent decorations (marble, opus sectile, mosaics, frescoes, and stucco decorations) dating from a time between the end of the iv and the beginning of the V century AD. Of these, few traces are left, because all the materials have been deprived of their original decorative functions and repurposed for other uses. This precise and organized recovery work of raw materials, taken place before the building was abandoned, makes the reconstruction of the living spaces and their function particularly difficult. The reconstruction of the surviving decorations shows the refinement of the materials: marble works for the floors, wall paintings simulating opus sectile, mosaics in stone tiles and gold-leafed transparent and opaque glass paste, traces of architectural stuccoes, crustae marmoreae, glass paste opus sectile depicting fish, attributable to Egyptian craftsmanship. Lastly, the excavation also brought to light a building that can be traced back to the rustic area of the villa (pars rustica): this is supposed to be a monumental granarium (9 × 30 mt), which is paired with a second, smaller one, where several dolia were still stored to contain grains, wine or oil. The aim of this book is to provide a reasoned synthesis of the late antique residential and productive villa, up to its conversion into a recycling center for all the materials that had constituted and decorated it in earlier times.
- Affiliations
Citations
Cavalieri, M. (2023). Da villa tardoantica a cantiere altomedievale. La trasformazione di Aiano (San Gimignano, Siena). Amoenitas. Rivista internazionale di studi miscellanei sulla villa romana antica, XI(néant), 143. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/233709 (Original work published 2023)