Roselle was an ancient city of Etruscan origins located 8 kilometers north of the city of Grosseto. The archaeological remains are found near the modern hamlet of the same name. In 2016, the archaeological area recorded 18,716 visitors.
History
Roselle was located 10 km from Grosseto, at the crossing point between the Ombrone valley and the Grosseto Maremma, on the shore of the ancient Prile lake, and was an ancient lucumonie of central Etruria, a member of the Etruscan twelve-city.
It preserves a superimposition of buildings and walls belonging to the Etruscan-Villanovan phase, to the successive ones of the Etruscan civilization, and then to the Roman one. The discovery of Attic red-figure vases bears witness to the city’s commercial contacts with Greece and the Greek colonies in southern Italy.
Founded in the 7th century BC, it was cited by Dionysius of Halicarnassus among the cities that brought aid to the Latins in the war against Tarquinio Prisco. It developed to the detriment of nearby lucumonies in particular Vetulonia.
In 294 BC. was conquered by the Romans. It first became a Roman municipality and later, with Augustus, a colony. The Forum and the basilica, a rainwater collection system and a thermal building date back to this period. Traces of an amphitheater and villas are also preserved.
From the sixth century it declined like all Maremma, scourged by malaria. The city was abandoned until the area was reclaimed at the end of the eighteenth century.
Starting in the 1950s, the remains of the ancient buildings were brought to light through a long campaign of excavations carried out by the Archaeological Superintendency of Tuscany.
City walls
It was built by the Etruscans between the 7th and 6th centuries BC, to protect the city, at the time it was one of the main cities in Etruria, both for its strategic importance and for trade with other cities in the area.
The oldest part of the walls develops between the northern and eastern sides, while the opposite part was completed last.
The path of the archaeological area runs alongside the walls.
Description
The walls of Roselle, definable “cyclopean walls” due to the stylistic elements, develop along a perimeter of more than three kilometres.
Overall, the circle is almost completely intact, with average heights around 7 metres, almost entirely enclosing the area of Etruscan origin of the city, while the the Roman part was mainly built outside the perimeter walls.
The curtain wall is made up of a series of polygonal blocks of stone, which rest one on top of the other, recalling in some ways the defensive system of the city of Tiryns.
Along the perimeter walls the remains of some access doors are visible, as well as a valuable postern from the archaic period.
The amphitheater
It was built by the Romans during the 1st century AD, and Villanovan and Etruscan finds from the 7th-6th century BC have been found in the very place where it stands.
During the early medieval period, the arena became a fortified enclosure, thanks to the constructions made using materials taken from ruined Roman buildings. This fortalice should be recognized as a late antique/early medieval castrum, created as a defense of the Byzantine territories against the advance of the Lombards.
The area remained occupied until at least the 16th century, as evidenced by the various fragments of archaic majolica, engobed and scratched, and glazed and enamelled ceramics found inside.
Description
The earth removed for the construction of the arena was almost certainly reused as a basis for the erection of the higher tiers of seats.
The elliptical building has particularly small dimensions compared to those of similar monuments found in other Roman cities. The accesses are four and different by type: those located on the E-W major axis they are uncovered and delimited by long walls, while the remaining two are flanked by masonry shorter and are covered by barrel vaults. Some late antique masonry was found in connection with a rich series of coins and represent the only anthropic traces between the age of Caligula and Diocletian.
Since the end of the 1980s, in the archaeological site of the Etruscan-Roman city of Roselle, the Roman amphitheater from the Augustan era has hosted the Rosellan Summer, an event centered on concerts and national level dance and drama performances, thanks to the still excellent. Some shows are held right at sunset, to further enhance the performances that take place in a suggestive background.
Domus dei Mosaici
The first traces of the domus date back to the late Republican age and can be dated after the extensive destruction to which Roselle was subjected in 90-80 BC. The plan of the building does not differ from the canonical plan of the Italic-type house, characterized by the cross-shaped axial layout, which also appears in Roselle itself from other excavated buildings. In the Tiberian age the domus was subject to restoration and aesthetic embellishments: it was enlarged and restored, as well as enriched by the three statues of Tiberius, Livia and Drusus the minor. During the Claudian age there was a partial destruction, perhaps due to a fire, followed by an immediate restoration. The construction of the first thermal facility in the southern half dates back to the same period and the house, with its small annexed baths, became public, given the disproportion between the rooms intended for thermal use and those with a purely residential function.
In the late Hadrianic or Antonine age, the structure was subject to heavy reorganization with the raising and expansion of the bath complex and its annexes: in this phase we witness the laying of the mosaics in the bath rooms and in the tablinium.
The domus underwent substantial transformations between the 4th and 7th centuries, when, in full late antiquity, there was a shop which occupied the previous living quarters. The workshop, attributable to a blacksmith, has yielded layers rich in processing ashes, earth rich in coal and slag arranged on almost all the floors, blackened by the stages of metallurgical processing. Furthermore, the various findings of bronze and metal objects have led to the hypothesis that in this workshop objects were not produced ex novo, but that ancient objects were once again smelted, coming from Etruscan tombs in the necropolis and public and private buildings from the Roman age. Towards the end of the 4th century the workshop and what remains of the domus were abandoned and during the 6th century there were burials of infants which were set above the levels of collapse.
San Silvestro church
Originally known as little temple of the Augustales, the religious building has early medieval origins, its existence being historically ascertained in a document dated 765. The church was built at the point where which previously stood a pagan place of worship dating back to the 1st century called the small temple of the flamenes Augustales, which was abandoned between the end of the 4th and the beginning of the 5th century. Part of the building materials of the ancient Roman temple of the imperial age were reused for the construction of the place of Christian worship, which was named after San Silvestro. Almost certainly, the religious building was a secondary oratory, which could have been abandoned before that of the nearby parish church of Santa Maria a Civita.
The church of San Silvestro preserves its archaeological remains near the southern side of the Rosella forum, near the domus of the mosaics.
Pieve di Santa Maria a Civita
Also called parish church of Santa Maria a Moscona, a religious building, it was the ancient early Christian basilica of Roselle, dating back to the early Middle Ages (8th century). In the Middle Ages the church was elevated to an independent parish, continuing its functions at least until almost the entire fourteenth century. The definitive abandonment of the ancient Etruscan-Roman city for the benefit of the flourishing Maremma capital put the continuation of the existence of the parish to a severe test, so much so that it was definitively abandoned in the late Middle Ages.
The parish church of Santa Maria a Civita, which was built using recycled materials from Roman buildings dating back to the 1st century, preserves its archaeological remains just east of the forum, in the heart of the ancient city of Roselle. Originally it had three naves following the canons of the ancient early Christian Roman basilicas; around the year 1000 a <strong class=”ui-sortable-handle”>bell tower</strong> was added near the front facade. The place of worship was richly decorated, so much so that some bas-reliefs from the basilica are kept in Grosseto at the Maremma archaeological and art museum, while others have been moved and reused to decorate the parish church of San Martino in Batignano; a final decorative element was instead placed along the masonry of the rural complex called Il Serpaio.
<strong class=”ui-sortable-handle”><span style=”font-size: 14pt;”>Terme</span></strong>
On the slopes of the northern hill, a <strong>thermal complex from the Roman age</strong> was found, characterized by masonry that in elevation presents the opus reticulatum technique with plinth and brick grips, while in the foundation there is the opus caementicium.
During the phase of abandonment and collapse of the baths in late antiquity, a bottom of a circular hut was found which can be dated between the 4th century and the end of the 5th century. The unpublished study of some ceramic fragments, a bowl and a red engobed vase, coming from the filling of a perimeter hole, would move the dating between the end of the 6th and the 1st half of the 7th century.
<span style=”font-size: 14pt;”><strong>Basilica</strong></span>
During the early Middle Ages there was the construction of a <strong>early Christian basilica</strong> which was established on the now disused and plundered thermal plant. Although attentive above all to the Roman structures on which the cathedral was founded, the plan of the countryside of the forties also punctually referred to the colonnade which, repeating the presumed peristyle around the swimming pool of the thermal plant, marked the church into three naves, and to the structure founded on the series of service rooms to close the apse. The positioning of the column bases of the naves is not conjectural, while the presence of a colonnade also on the short side remains hypothetical, indicated only by a column base.
If for the north-eastern corner of the apse area the research as a foundation of the surviving Roman structures seems constant and coherent, already from the 1942 survey it was evident that the southern wall of the apse is independent of the Roman structure. The plant of a rectangular apse, equipped with “sumptuous” flooring in large stone blocks, which, as emerges from the relationship with the column bases, ensured its marked elevation with respect to the central nave, is not due to the conditioning of the pre-existing monuments, but a precise iconographic choice. The Rosellana cathedral retains its original layout until it was abandoned.
<span style=”font-size: 14pt;”><strong>Necropolis</strong></span>
The necropolis that develops around the church is <strong>organized in terraces</strong>: the burials have a distribution dictated by constant distances and have a good construction technique.
They cut a layer that can be dated by African sigillata and dripping or banded red slip pottery and contain grave goods from the 6th and mid-7th centuries.
During the 6th century, a building was constructed, most likely a <strong>privileged burial site</strong>, in an area full of children’s burials.
The church underwent restoration and embellishment during the eighth century, as evidenced by architectural elements such as plutei, enclosure pillars and a fragment of ciborium to be connected to interventions attributed to the magister Iohannes, as recalled by a dedication epigraph now conserved in the Podere il Serpaio, in the Rosella hinterland.
Between the 10th and 11th centuries, the church was given a <strong>mighty tower</strong>, accessible only from inside the church itself.
<span style=”font-size: 14pt;”><strong>Pieve di Santa Maria (Roselle)</strong></span>
The parish church of Santa Maria a Roselle, also called <strong>La Canonica </strong> and historically known as the Cathedral of Roselle, is located on the hillside slopes of Poggio Mosconcino, on a small hill called La Canonica: its location was outside the ‘ancient city, contrary to what its denomination might suggest.
The religious building, dating back to the medieval period, was originally the cathedral of Roselle, until the definitive transfer of the bishopric to Grosseto (1138). Subsequently, the church became the <strong>parish of reference</strong> for the area between the ancient city of Roselle and the Tino di Moscona, a fortified settlement located at the top of the homonymous hill. The existence of the place of worship was already ascertained in documents dating back to the beginning of the 12th century, since an antecedent origin probably from the early Middle Ages cannot be excluded. Subsequently, the place of worship followed a fate similar to that of the parish church of Santa Maria a Civita. The definitive abandonment of Roselle also had repercussions on the nearby settlements, also leading to an inexorable <strong>decline for this religious building</strong>, whose definitive abandonment can be dated between the late Middle Ages and the early Renaissance period: in the late sixteenth century the church it was already in ruins.
The parish church of Santa Maria a Roselle preserves its <strong>archaeological remains</strong> with wall structures in mortar blocks, in an area where various <strong>Etruscan-Roman tombs have been discovered.</strong> From analysis of its remains it is possible to establish the considerable size of the religious building.