During my recent stay in Sicily, Italy, I visited a Roman villa called Villa Romana Del Casale. It was a sumptuous villa from the roman period. The owners lived in luxury: the villa had its own private thermae, several reception halls and (common) restrooms as large as a living room. Today, only the bottom part of the walls and the floor mosaics remain.

Even service rooms were decorated, with geometric patterned mosaics. I like this geometrical mosaic that looks like a carpet.

(Click on the pictures to enlarge them)

In the reception halls and bedrooms, mosaics show mythological scenes and also daily life scenes: hunting, fishing, sport, children’s games, animals…

Here for example, like in Ben-Hur chariot race sequence, children race in chariots but those are pulled by… birds.

In another room, this mosaic combines geometrical patterns and medallions featuring fruits.

The mosaic artists managed to show details in a very realistic way, such as those figs that make me hungry.

By the way, what I prefered were the small details of the mosaics. Here some plants that could be part of a decoration catalogue.

There some fishes.

And finally a bird. Thanks to the enlargement, you can see more closely the assembly of small colored stone pieces.

For more information, see Villa Romana Del Casale website