The excavations of Villa Theodoric remains of an elegant, large villa with private baths dating from the years of Theodoric’s reign in Italy (5th-6th century AD).
Older structures from the Roman period have been discovered on the site. Valuable protohistoric and pre-Roman artifacts have also been found, probably related to a rustic villa.
In the fertile plain to the north of Galeata, history and legend are intertwined, giving rise to the tradition that Theodoric, who came to the Bidentina Valley to restore Trajan’s aqueduct that supplied Ravenna with water, had a villa built (called a “palatium” in the Life of St. Ellero) to be used as a hunting lodge.
Some parts of the villa (along with structures from the Roman period) were excavated in 1942 by the Germanic Archaeological Institute in Rome.
The restart of excavations in 1998 confirmed the existence in the area of several building phases dating from the Republican and Imperial ages and the Theodoric phase (late 5th-early 6th centuries CE).
From the rich residence of the Theodoric age, part of the residential and representative section with mosaic-floored rooms (currently buried) and the thermal ‘quarter’ with rooms for hot, tepid and cold baths have been brought to light. Adjacent to this covered section was a corridor paved in sandstone with a central pool and forming a kind of connecting room with other sectors of the villa. Due to the architectural complexity combined with the dating of the materials, surely the residence belonged to a wealthy dignitary of the Gothic court of Ravenna, if not to King Theodoric himself.
The thermal area of Theodoric’s Villa can be visited from spring to the beginning of November, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Visits for groups are possible on other days by appointment.
Other news: An excavation campaign is being carried out in the area by the Department of Archaeology of the University of University of Bologna. A selection of the materials found on the site (with a chronological excursus from prehistory to the High Middle Ages) is on display in the room dedicated to the Villa of Teoderico, inside the ‘Mons. Domenico Mambrini’ Civic Museum in Pianetto.
How to get there: Galeata is about 34 km from Forlì, along the SS4 del Bidente. The archaeological site is located north of the town of Galeata.
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