Caddeddi on the Tellaro

Download or read book Caddeddi on the Tellaro written by Roger John Anthony Wilson and published by Peeters. This book was released on 2016 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The late Roman villa of Caddeddi, near Noto in south-east Sicily, first came to light over forty years ago. Built in the second half of the fourth century AD, it is chiefly known for its three figured mosaic pavements, which after careful restoration in Syracuse were returned to the site prior to its opening to the public in 2008. This book describes in detail these and other pavements at Caddeddi, and concludes that, as at the more famous villa of Casale near Piazza Armerina a generation before, they are likely to be the work of North African mosaicists fulfilling an overseas commission for the villa's owner. The book attempts to place the mosaics and the villa itself in their wider Sicilian and Mediterranean context, with discussion ranging over such topics as late Roman villas elsewhere in Sicily, the iconography of myth and personification, peacock-feather helmets, the participation of the military in the Roman animal trade, the parallels between the mosaic floors of Caddeddi and those of Roman North Africa, the development of a new Roman saddle type in the fourth century, and military footwear fashionable at the same time. Of particular note are the 197 illustrations, 184 of them in full colour, which highlight the vividness and vivacity, as well as the polychromatic variety, of these stunning late Roman mosaics.