COLLECTION NAME:
Archivision Base to Module 9
Record
Preferred Title:
Villa Romana del Casale: Mosaics
Alternate Title:
Roman villa at Piazza Armerina: Mosaics
Image View:
Close view of mosaic in the ambulatory of the great hunt, depicting panthers being captured
Creator:
unknown (Ancient Roman)
Location:
site: Villa Romana del Casale (Piazza Armerina, Sicily, Italy)
Location Note:
mosaics in situ
GPS:
+37.364722+14.334722
Date:
ca. 310-325 (creation)
Cultural Context:
Roman
Style Period:
Imperial (Roman)
Work Type 1:
excavation (site)
Work Type 2:
mosaic (visual work)
Classification:
mosaics
Material:
mosaic
Technique:
mosaic (process)
Relation Work:
part of Villa Romana del Casale
Subjects:
animals; decorative arts; mythology (Classical); recreation and games; festivals; Roman Empire; mosaic; animals; hunting
Description:
The villa contains some 45 rooms, nearly all of them still paved with mosaic (or in one case marble) flooring preserved in situ. It is estimated that the total area of mosaic paving covers about 3500 sq. m, more than in any other known single building in the Roman Empire. Internal stylistic links between individual pavements not only suggest close contemporaneity but also strengthen the likelihood that most if not all of the floors were laid by a single workshop; and close parallels in North Africa for pavement after pavement in the Sicilian villa demonstrate beyond all reasonable doubt that the mosaicists who worked at Piazza Armerina were based in Africa, almost certainly at Carthage. The subject matter is very diverse and includes hunting scenes, mythological scenes, marine scenes, circus and chariot scenes, children and cupids, fantastical animals and geometric decorative schemes. (Source: Grove Art Online; http://www.oxfordartonline.com/)
Image Description:
Scenes of hunting, both local (hare, boar, deer) and Empire-wide (the rounding up of a wide variety of exotic beasts, such as leopards, tigers, ostriches, an elephant, a hippopotamus and a rhinoceros, for dispatch to the amphitheatres of Italy, carpeting a corridor on the east side of the peristyle some 70 m long).
Collection:
Archivision Addition Module Three
Identifier:
1A3-R-S-VE-2-B1
Rights:
© Scott Gilchrist, Archivision, Inc.
Villa Romana del Casale: Mosaics
