Bacoli, remains of a monumental Roman villa discovered on the shores of Miseno harbor

In the course of urban regeneration works in the Municipality of Bacoli, a project has been launched for the recovery and enhancement of the area previously occupied by the former Lido Piranha, an illegal ecomonstrum demolished in recent years, which had thrown an area of great archaeological and scenic value into degradation and abandonment, also due to the spillage of special waste, because of which the seals of the Guardia di Finanza had been triggered in October 2021. Following the release from seizure and reclamation of the entire area, work began on the construction of a municipal villa, in order to return to the public one of the most spectacular accesses to Miseno beach, for long years rendered inaccessible by garbage and brushwood, a project in which the ABAP Superintendence for the Naples Metropolitan Area actively participated, intending to actively support the Municipal Administration in this redevelopment project.

Precisely during the landscaping operations, thanks to the in-progress archaeological assistance prescribed by the Protection Office, the remains of a monumental Roman villa, datable to around the first century A.D., emerged, made of well-constructed tufa cubilia latticework, extending seamlessly to the beach and the seabed in front of it. About ten large rooms with different building phases, floors and traces of wall coverings have been identified.

Evidence probably pertaining to what remains of one of the terraces of the residence of the prefect of the Roman Tyrrhenian Fleet, the Classis Misenensis. It was already known that structures were preserved in that area, just as fragments of masonry in opus reticulatum are already visible along the Sarparella beach, but thanks to the reclamation work first, which began in 2021, and the redevelopment work nearing completion, it was possible to start a systematic cleaning of the wall ridges and identify the articulation of the rooms. The yet-to-be-verified hypothesis that the residence of the Fleet Prefect was located on Punta Sarparella is based on the circumstance that that place offered, due to its location, maximum visibility of the entire harbor basin and a wide view of the entire gulf.

The discovery is even more exceptional when one considers that the articulation and exploitation of the spaces in and around the Roman port are still unknown due to the almost complete absence of data clarifying the organizational dynamics of the logistical base, the communication routes between the port and the rest of the town, and the very location of the center of the Colony of Misenum. The identification of such structures at a pivotal point of the ancient territory, overlooking the inner basin of the Roman port, close to the entrance of the Misenum theater and to the area that must have housed the town forum, add a piece of great importance to the knowledge of the articulation of the ancient settlement palimpsest.

Pending the evaluation of an extensive excavation project of the villa and contextual enhancement, currently the perimeter of the rooms has been identified and fenced off, and returned, thanks also to the forthcoming installation of explanatory panels.

Bacoli, remains of a monumental Roman villa discovered on the shores of Miseno harbor

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