HERE WE START PAINTING WITH STONE

" now we don't like panels or spaces that stretch mountains into a room: here we start painting with stone”

So does Pliny testify to the introduction of a new decorative technique that was to become one of the most popular for paving and decorating imperial buildings, private residences and public facilities: the mosaic.

Among the many places embellished by these works, one gives us exceptional testimony in one of the largest archaeological parks in the world: Ostia Antica, the Necropolis of Porto and Portus, the imperial port of Claudius and Trajan.

And it is here in Portus, in a late antique thermal facility, that we will discover the long and complex restoration work carried out on a floor mosaic of one of the service areas of the baths.

Baths attended for centuries by the sailors of the Roman imperial fleet who found refreshment here at the end of their long and dangerous sea voyages.

The recovery of an important archaeological asset and the telling of a model of integration that was one of the foundations of Roman society for centuries.