Roman Villa of Positano
About
A 2003 flood tore open the ground beneath Positano's Church of Santa Maria Assunta and revealed a buried Roman villa complete with painted walls and mosaic floors, hidden beneath the town's main piazza for nearly two thousand years. Its owners were mid-repair from 62 CE earthquake damage when Vesuvius erupted on 24 August 79 CE and entombed the property. The site opened as the Roman Archaeological Museum of Positano in 2018, reached by a stairway descending from the church.
What happened here
A working estate with a comfortable house attached, and the proportions vary with how rich the owner is and how often he visits. The farm side has presses for oil and wine, threshing floors, storage sunk into the ground, stables and quarters for the workforce. The residential side has baths, dining rooms sited for the view, mosaics, and a garden with water in it. A manager runs the place year-round and reports; the owner arrives for the vintage and for the summer. Produce goes to market or to the owner's town house, and the accounts are kept in detail. Some villas are pure retreat with no farm at all, built on a cliff or a lake specifically to be looked at from a boat.
Sources
Roman Maps shows the empire frozen at 11 August 117 CE, the day Trajan died — its moment of greatest territorial extent. Explore the full map →