Aiano - Torraccia di Chiusi (San Gimignano, Siena): a Roman Villa in Central Italy during Late Antiquity

Since 2005, archaeological excavations are led by the Université catholique de Louvain, with a Belgian and Italian équipe, on a Roman villa site in Aiano-Torraccia di Chiusi (San Gimignano, Siena), an example of the wealthy rural residences of late-antique aristocracy in Central Italy, dating from the 3rd/4th century to the 7th century A.D. The 5th century is crucial for the residential villa: in the first decades the complex was restored and the rooms were completely reorganized, while during the last decades and the beginning of the 6th century, some manufacturing workshop were installed inside the rooms, and also the spoliation of the villa begun. One of the most important changing in the complex, was the central pavilion, the 5th century Trifoil Hall. During the 4th century the central pavilion was a hexalobular Hall, but then three of the apses were closed and the floor was decorated with the only in - situ mosaic: a caementicium with small lithic black and white tesserae, forming geometric patterns and the image of a kantharos in the western apse. The mosaic was painted with a red colour (rubricatura) in some specific areas. After this new residential phase, between the very end of the century and the beginning of the next one, all the glass and marble decorations were removed and reused, and evey room was completely changed in its function: the honour route inside the complex was abandoned; floors and wall revetments were destroyed, and the fragments were reused, usually after a functional reshaping.