Piazza Armerina (February 22)

After checking out of our hotel in Taormina, we headed to Piazza Armerina for the morning and early afternoon to see the Castle of Villa Romana.  While there, two students were in charge of introducing the ruins of castle to the rest of the group. To date, nobody knows for sure who lived in this castle but it was certainly a well-to-do family, possibly an emperor, as is evidenced by the 30,000+ mosaic tiles throughout the various rooms inside the castle.  To the right is the floor plan of the castle illustrating the enormity of it.

After the intro, the student leaders engaged the group in a scavenger hunt, where they had to the answers to a series of questions by traversing through the castle.  For example, one of the questions asked about the different objects the female athletes in bikinis were holding and their significance.  Here’s a picture of the winning group. From left to right: Andrew, Quincy, Nick, Ben, and Aiden.

This photo depicts a woman in the center, possibly a matriarch of the family, with her two sons (on either side of her) with her two servants on either end.  As legend has it, the woman is one of the mistresses of the emperor, Maxium, of the castle.  The man to her right is one of her sons, Maxentius, who is allegedly cross-eyed and also believed to be the son of Maxium.  Interestingly enough, upon closer look, the man in the mosaic is definitely not cross-eyed but it has become the accepted way of accounting this story.  Why?  I do not know and nor do Yvonne or Santo, our SYA ancient art history and ancient history teachers.  Unless people come to see it for themselves, people will continue to believe the story in its current version.

As you can see, there are thousands of mosaic designs on each floor of the castle.  Here is a photo of a courtyard with a huge fountain.  It’s adjacent to the main (and very long) hallway (see left), probably a place where most of the entertaining occurred.  You can see in the picture of the long hallway that in order to preserve the mosaic floors, they needed to be covered from the natural elements.  So the missing ceilings and walls were reconstructed in a way to match the original shape and dimensions of the castle.

This next picture are of women who are in bikini-like garb.  However they are not planning on going to the beach for a suntan.  Instead these women are athletes wearing their stropium, which is the upper part of the uniform, and their subligar, the lower part.

No castle can be complete without its own bathhouse! You can see from the picture (left) that the owners wanted theirs to be one of great size and opulence, so that no matter how many guests were staying, they all could fit comfortably at one time if they so chose.  I cannot imagine why a castle full of people would feel the need to descend upon the bathhouse at one time but, as the famous line from the movie Amadeus would tell us, "well, there it is!"