sight
This long porticoed corridor is really wide and leads to all the rooms of the central core of the villa. Its architecture is very scenic and consists of thirty-two tall columns with an Attic base and Corinthian capitals. It has a courtyard in the centre and a large fountain with three basins which, in late antiquity, must have cooled down those who walked through it. Those who went to the official rooms of the villa, but also to the private rooms reserved for the dominus and his family, could not escape the gaze of the protomes of wild animals that animate the floor of the Peristyle on three sides. Even today, it seems to be a rich representation of all the exotic animal species known in the Empire.
hearing
Can you hear the conversations between the people who, at the beginning of the 4th century AD, went to the various rooms of the Peristyle? Listen … the guards with their large, circular, colourful shields, represented in the official route, seem to come to life and pervade the entire room with a dull metallic noise. So many voices overlap…
The clientes who come to the Basilica engage in conversations with each other about the latifundium, while the servants share instructions for everything to be set up in the master’s flats. Hear … the melodic sound of a zither in the Hall of Orpheus mingles with the interplay of water produced by the sculptures adorning the large fountain in the centre of the garden.
smell
The great Peristyle must have been pervaded by a multitude of different scents. From the kitchen, albeit more hidden than the other spaces of the late antique residence facing the porticoed corridor, the sweet fragrance of bread dipped in wine, fruit and cheese announced the ientaculum, breakfast. Imagine this long corridor, crowded with servants in charge of the rooms, the cubiculari, who travelled with oils and essences to the cubicula, the bedrooms, to say good morning to their masters. The crackling of the fire could be heard from somewhere, feeding the oil lamps for a short time. A few steps and you were immersed in the viridarium, enriched with plants that gave off pleasant aromas.
touch
The long colonnade of this large quadrangular space has mostly grey granite shafts with attic-type white marble bases. The corner columns, on the other hand, are made of breccia di Settebassi. The white marble capitals of Corinthian order, with the lightness and elegance of their acanthus leaves, were designed to support a marble lintel, itself used to support for the pitched roofs.
