The remains of a Roman Villa in the northern Venetian lagoon, near Lio Piccolo, have been under investigation since the archeologist Ernesto Canal started in the 1980s.
Every year new discoveries, further research and digging make this archeological site very fascinating. Anyone intrigued by the history of Venice and its lagoon is invited to join the “archeological aperitifs” for an update: www.facebook.com/Viveredacqua
The fun part is the more you investigate, the more questions rise!
A Roman villa in Lio Piccolo
In June 2024 I attended one of these events, too, reaching the site with my wooden “sanpierota” boat. Lio Piccolo, literally “small lido, sand beach” is a favorite of ours on our lagoon wanderings.
It lies by the crossroad of two major canals, the canal of San Felice and the canal Riga running around Valle Olivari fish farm. Not too far, the island “Salina” and a lovely trattoria, called “Le saline” are nearby reminding you that not just beaches used to be there, but also salt marshes as the name “saline” refers to “salt”.
The Venetian lagoon: not just Torcello
The canal San Felice is one of the deepest canals in the lagoon and it connects to the open sea. During our sailing races, its currents can be pretty challenging. You immediately wonder what it must have been like during the 1st century AC. In fact, you wonder what the lagoon looked like 2000 years ago.
Let’s start saying the lagoon is a natural environment which has always been artificially modified by human presence. Its liminal, frontier position between rivers and the open sea has brought the lagoon to constantly change. The diversion of rivers which used to empty out in the lagoon was one of the major interventions to prevent the lagoon to silt up or to avoid malaria.
The islands of Torcello, Santa Cristina, San Lorenzo di Ammiana, Costanziaca or La Cura and the lagoon of the Sette Soleri north of Lio Piccolo site are (or rather used to be) all located along a main canal leading to the ancient Roman port city of Altino.
Now the landscape is mainly marshland, shallow water where some swans or shell ducks linger lazily, or where silver herons stand still.
Some fishing nets are zigzagging the water between March and November.
A canal, once the Sile River
A Roman Villa was therefore built at Lio Piccolo during the 1st century AC. The idea archeologists have developed is that the Roman villa was built there because the canal Riga was not a canal, but it was the Sile river, which now no longer empties out in the lagoon. What makes this river interesting is that the Sile is not of a torrential kind, which makes it hard to navigate. In fact, it is the longer karst spring river in Europe, calm, gentle water. Perfect for transportation and for grain ships.
A Roman villa in the Venetian lagoon was in fact built along the route where the sea met with the Sile river. But when was it built? What did it look like?
A Roman villa in the Venetian lagoon and its two lives
The villa seems to have had two lives. A first period, dating back to the 1st-2nd century AC and, after a contraction during the 3rd century, a second period to the 4th-5th century AC. These two periods seem to have been differently characterized.
Between the 1st and the 2nd century AC the villa was an elegant, refined mansion, not necessarily a private one, maybe inhabited by some public officer. Similar to the Roman villa in Baia, the Roman villa in the Venetian lagoon at Lio Piccolo likely had a porch, it was beautifully frescoed in the rooms for the guests and for the banquets.
Fresco fragments of a Roman villa
Imagine: over 3000 fragments of frescoes have been collected around 1,5 meters below the water level, preserved in anaerobic mud. One fragment shows a villa with a porch facing the water, others show plants and birds.
Likely fish, salt and agriculture were the focus of its economic activities.
A second period dating back to the 4th-5th century brought the villa to new life, after a period of decadence around the 3rd century. Just before and maybe right after the Roman Empire was collapsing this villa experienced a rebirth, changing to a more trading focused mission. Import and export. Amphoras coming from Africa or the East witness this new activity.
At the moment of my visit in early June 2024, the part under investigation showed rooms for workers, likely slaves. Small residential rooms, brick walls no longer to be found but it is clear where they were.
The Project: Vivere d’acqua
What it’s really amazing is that it’s likely 5% only of what lies under the lagoon water and mud flats which has been discovered. So much lies under at least one meter of water or in land which does not get excavated… Here is the link to the website of the project “Vivere d’Acqua”: www.unive.it/pag/37653/ and the video clips regarding the area and the villa:
Since Ernesto Canal started talking to old fishermen who knew where “stones” could be found in the lagoon, the image of a different northern lagoon in the Roman and medieval age has taken shape.
Shall we imagine a vast area where agriculture, fish farming, salt marshes were of great importance? Canals or rivers with plenty of boats moving around to connect to towns on the mainland? Roman villas with colorful frescoes and people who likely adapted themselves to the water environment?
Well, as long as the University of Venice Ca’ Foscari keeps on working, we can imagine an exciting future of new discoveries and aperitifs 🙂
by Luisella Romeo
registered tourist guide in Venice, Italy
www.seevenice.it
Another fascinating blog, many thanks. I expect that anyone with more than just a passing interest in Venice (me!) is probably aware of how the marshy lagoon became a sanctuary for the people of the mainland of the Veneto who were fleeing the Barbarian invaders of 5th century Rome. It’s part of the wonderful foundation story of La Serenissima . But what most of those visitors are probably less aware of is that there had been a presence of people in the northern lagoon, ‘ancient Romans’ as we tend to generically describe them, who were probably not the ancestors of the people who actually founded Venice. (I do believe I read this in another excellent ‘foundation’ blog YOU wrote a few years ago! ☘️)
Anyway, what is particularly interesting about this update is the picture you paint of the rivers and canals of the northern lagoon islands at the edge of the mainland where those ancient ‘Romans’ may have built their lovely villas and later, their busy trading posts (before the Barbarians drove them off.) I even pulled out a good map of the lagoon that I have, to trace all the island landmarks you mention. Thank you for including photos that also show just how peaceful and beautiful this part of the lagoon is today – a far cry from what it must have been in the third and fourth centuries! ☺️
Wow, you could not have it said any better! Grazie!!! It’s such a fascinating story, and archeological surveys sound like a detective story mixed with political, economic and even environmental aspects. More to come, I am sure!