As part of the James Loeb Lecture series, Roger Wilson of the University of British Columbia will present a talk titled:

“Caddeddi on the Tellaro: A Late Roman Villa in Sicily and its Mosaics”
 

The Roman villa in contrada Caddeddi on the R. Tellaro, near Noto in southeast Sicily, was discovered by chance in 1971. Although brief notes have been published about the villa and its mosaics, and the site is mentioned in passing in general surveys of late Roman villas, it and its fine mosaics have until very recently lacked a detailed publication. They date to the second half of the fourth century AD, and so belong to a generation later than the famous floors of Villa Casale near Piazza Armerina. This talk considers the iconography of the three main mosaics at Caddeddi: a mythological scene, the ransoming of the body of Hector; a floor depicting a bust of Bacchus at the center with satyrs and maenads in the panels around; and an action-packed hunting scene with many episodes paralleled in general terms on the Piazza Armerina floors. The paper also sets the Caddeddi mosaics in context by comparing details from all three with mosaic comparanda in north Africa, and comes to the conclusion that, although not all details can be paralleled there, the mosaics at Caddeddi, like those at Piazza Armerina, were all laid by itinerant African craftsmen, almost certainly based at Carthage.