Domus del Mito

In the area of the Campo della Pieve, the latest excavations conducted by the Superintendence of Archaeological Heritage of Ancona, have unearthed a large noble domus built towards the end of the 1st century AD, approximately 1,000 square meters in size and embellished with a rich complex of two-tone and polychrome figurative mosaics.

The Domus del Mito, built inside the Roman city of Tifernum Mataurense (ancient name of the current Sant’Angelo in Vado), represents the most conspicuous archaeological discovery of the last 50 years.

The mosaic floors, of good and excellent quality and mostly splendidly preserved depict various subjects and demonstrate the significance of the ancient city of cartoons and specialized workers and the presence in it of a cultured and refined clientele

The domus is a solid and quiet building, powerful and elegant, of rectangular shape, solidly built on a single floor with bricks or concrete (a mixture of sand, gravel, water and cement), consisting of walls with almost no windows towards the outside but totally open towards the inside. It was different from the suburban villa, which was instead a private holiday home located outside the city walls, and from the rustic villa, located in the countryside and equipped with specific rooms for agricultural work.

The rooms that looked directly onto the street were usually rented to third parties to be used as shops or artisan workshops and were called tabernae. At the back of the house in the open air there was the hortus, the domestic garden/vegetable garden.
The most prestigious domus were larger and composed of two main parts: the first centred around the atrium, the second around the peristyle, a large porticoed garden overlooking other rooms, usually decorated with fruit trees, water features and small pools.

The high number of mosaic figures, mostly linked to classical mythology, has led to its being called “of the Myth”, due to the many mythological elements that distinguish it and that allude to the cultural level of the dominus (master of the house) and his court.