Waving a red scarf, this woman depicted in the Room of the Dance at the Villa Romana del Casale in Piazza Armerina wears a decorative dress, elegant jewelry (note her bangles), and red shoes. She’s even sporting a cat eye makeup style! I like this woman! Archeologists think this 3rd/4th century C.E. mosaic was inspired…
Tag: ancient roman
Sicily’s Roman Villa Illustrates Life
Fisherman are hard at work getting the fresh catch for all of your feasting the next couple of days! This image from the Roman Villa of Casale in Piazza Armerina, Sicily, a 4th century AD estate that boasts 43,055 square feet of mosaic tile floors, shows us how they did it in ancient Roman times….
Start October Here In Taormina
Join me here in October 2020! Enchanting Taormina’s ancient amphitheater was built in phases, starting in the 3rd century BC by the Greek inhabitants of Mount Tauro, who added to the structure significantly in the 2nd century AD. The Romans then added their ingenuity in the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD, transforming it from a…
One Ostrich, Two Ostrich
The corridor of the Ambulatory of the Big Game Hunt at the Roman Villa del Casale in Piazza Armerina has been called a “map of the world,” by some scholars. Capped by two floor lunettes on either side, one representing Mauritania, a country in Africa, and the other India, the extraordinary mosaic scenes along the…
Connect Through Travel
Connect through the emotions of Campania and Sicily next summer! Join me, Allison Scola of Experience Sicily, and Danielle Oteri of Feast on History for a multigenerational tour exploring art, myth, culture, and food, June 29-July 8, 2018. Ladies from Pompeii (pictured left) will intrigue you and your granddaughter, while kings from Arab-Norman Palermo (pictured…
Bedtime Stories
Some light reading before my early bedtime (I’m still pushing through my jetlag.)…
The Headless Roman
This torso is part of an exhibition at Valley of the Temples in Agrigento. It displays findings from an archaeological excavation of the Roman forum that was conducted between 2012 and 2014. Now, imagine that you spent a lot of time and money creating this statue of the current governor or prefect. Then imagine that…
Sicily’s Modest Venus
Found in the Acradina quarter of Siracusa in 1804, the Venus Landolina is named for the archeologist, Saverio Landolina (1743-1814), who discovered the statue. Made from Greek marble in the 2nd century AD, the Roman era work is a copy of a Greek era work from the 2nd century BC. Because it is an unclothed…
Our May 2016 Tour, Day 8: Polyphemus and Friends
Sicily is the setting for many of the adventures told in Homer’s Odyssey. And, indeed, some of the stupendous mosaic scenes at the Villa Romana del Casale at Piazza Armerina (Where we’ll be on the morning of Day 8 of our May 2016 Experience Sicily with Melissa Muller tour) illustrate some of the epic poem’s…
Siracusa’s Roman Coliseum
Apparently, the Spanish weren’t into preservation of ruins. They did, however, recycle and reclaim, which is why not much is left of Siracusa’s ancient Roman Amphitheater (The Spanish took the stone to create buildings and walls elsewhere.). Just like in the world-famous Coliseum in Rome, this first-century BC arena hosted circuses, horse races, gladiator battles,…