Portugal - Torre de Palma

The Roman Villa of Torre de Palma : a new volume of the Corpus of Mosaics from Portugal

The Portuguese-French team «Mosaïcs from South Portugal » is publishing new volumes of the Corpus initiated in 1992 by Prof. J. M. Bairrão Oleiro in Conimbriga (Casa dos repuxos).

Excavated in 1947, the Roman villa of Torre de Palma has been chosen for its richly figured mosaics. An archaeological and architectural study - including mural paintings, ceramics and coins - is associated with the study of the mosaics, in a specific corpus.

The victorious horses and the Muses mosaics, due to an itinerant African workshop, deserve special iconographic and technical attention, after recent lifting and restoration. The mosaics of the villa are all dated at the end of the III^rd C. or the beginning of the IV^th C. Nevertheless, the villa itself dates back to the I^st C. A.D., developing into a classical peristyle villa in the II^nd C., and showing continous occupation until the V^th C.

The owner of the villa at the beginning of the IVth C.can be defined as a rich pagan aristocrat, willing to exhibit his classical culture and his inclination for the wine god Bacchus, in the pars publica of his villa.