On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
randy khan
This is our second side trip, to Aquileia, an important Roman town and a center of Christian religious life starting in the early 4th century C.E. We mostly were there to see the mosaics, which were much different – and older than – the mosaics in Ravenna.

The first stop on the way to Aquileia was at a genuine Palladian villa. It had all of the characteristics you’d expect, not just the windows but the porticos, columns, etc. – the whole deal. It’s officially called Villa Foscari, after the people who built it, but it’s known as Villa Malcontenta.

Once we got to Aquileia we went right to the basilica. The mosaics date back to the 4th century and were lost for about 900 years because they were covered up in the 11th century. When they removed the 11th century floor early in the 20th century, there they were. They’re marvelous and incredibly varied in subject matter. Lots, like this one, are people. I picked this one because I liked the expression and the foliage around his head.

This probably is a deer or something related. The pose is really lifelike, with wonderful implied motion.

There’s a whole section of the floor that’s like a trip to the bottom of the ocean. The fish are pretty realistic, but the octopus is like a caricature. I especially liked the eyes.

The basilica is connected to another building that dates to around the time Aquileia was founded in the 1st century C.E. The next couple of photos are from that building. I think this is one of the older parts of that building. The mosaics there were pretty impressive, too, but stylistically different than the ones in the basilica.

This photo is a little dark, but if you look you can see that it’s a really fine lobster. They liked their sea creatures.

This and the next photo are from the museum in Aquileia. They have a nice collection of Roman glass. Although obviously a lot of the glass is in pieces or broken and repaired, there is some that survived intact. This is a great example.

The museum has something like a back lot, filled with architectural fragments that have been found over the years. This is a nice bit of a mosaic floor. Aquileia was a very prosperous trading community, and so there were a lot of fine houses that would have been decorated lavishly. This probably came from one of those.
Mary G
Wow, wow, wow! What were those 11th Century idiots thinking? Can you imagine being the first person to pull up a floor and find that? In such excellent shape after so many centuries? I’m sure it was covered in dust and dirt, but still.
I wanted to know why the house was called La Malcontenta:
So, house arrest in a very nice house, but poor lady.
jackmac
Lovely mosaics. Thanks for sharing!
Nutmeg again
@jackmac:
I love these! Can’t help but notice that the Octopus is, erm, actually a Septopus. But who’s counting?
Scuffletuffle
Mind boggling that a piece of glass could survive for so long in one piece. Someone obviously didn’t have cats…
randy khan
@Mary G:
Styles change. In the 11th century, they like their mosaics to be a bit more gaudy: Take a look.
By the way, the early mosaics were basically the whole floor of the original church. Nowadays there’s a walkway that allows you to see them but not walk on them. The 11th century church was built after the earlier church was destroyed and eventually was itself replaced by a 14th century church. All the while, the original floor was underneath, and it wasn’t discovered until early in the 20th century. So 900 years of being hidden away. As you said, it must have been something to be the first person to see it again.
JanieM
Beautiful — again.
All the shots of mosaics have been reminding me The Sarantine Mosaic, by Guy Gavriel Kay, which is a two-volume historical fantasy: Sailing to Sarantium and Lord of Emperors. Great story, the central character of which is a mosaicist, Crispin, who is called to Sarantium (~Byzantium, sort of) to create a mosaic on the ceiling of a magnificent dome.
randy khan
@Nutmeg again:
There’s such a great combination of attention to detail and, well, lack of attention to detail in that one. All of the arms have little suckers all along them, but the eyes look like they’re out of a Bugs Bunny cartoon, and the body is more or less a circle, and there seems to be a missing arm (except that they’re more or less spaced evenly). It was my favorite.
Yutsano
@randy khan:
A very common ancient practice. We have lots of living examples to this day. Al-Asqa mosque being built on the Temple Mount wasn’t an accident, for example.
randy khan
@Scuffletuffle:
Yeah, it feels like a little miracle. (And right next to it was a fragment from a broken glass vessel.) On the other hand, people dig up intact bottles from 50 or 100 years ago all the time, and even in the time around 100 C.E. there was a lot of glass in the world. (The first person known to have signed his work – his name was Ennion – was making glass around then, and there are about 20 of his pieces still extant. There was a show focusing on his work at the Metropolitan not too long ago.)
Dan B
@Yutsano: As a friend (last seen here wielding a ruler) used to dish, ” Fashions come and fashions go but bad taste is eternal.” One can only wonder what atrocities didn’t survive the two thousand years since Rome was pre-eminent. If they do I haven’t seen them go viral, or public.
Benw
@Nutmeg again: where’s the last arm?
…
great googly moogly.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Mary G:
Sounds just like Dersh out at the Vineyard.
Amir Khalid
@Nutmeg again:
I don’t know why, but the Septopus reminds me of Squidward.
Mary G
The octopus’s eyes reminded me of this:
PJ
@randy khan: I imagine their must have been other glassmakers signing their work but their work just doesn’t survive. For most of the classical Greek statues, we no longer have the work (they were mostly bronze and probably were melted down), but there are a lot of bases that have the sculptor’s name inscribed: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/artists-and-signatures-in-ancient-greece/sculpture/F5359F9D4DCC8816D0A08A4BF850E5FE/core-reader
Origuy
The mosaics are fantastic. I suspect that the mosaiacist may have never seen a live octopus, just one on a platter.
Building sacred building on top of other sacred buildings is millennia old. Catholics built their churches on pagan sacred sites. The Mezquita in Cordoba is built on the site of a Visigothic church (the Moslems paid the Christians for the property) and then Charles V build a cathedral inside the Mezquita (Charles didn’t pay the Moslems anything). Probably the Visigoths build the church on a Roman pagan temple.
Chris T.
Obviously a male octopus who just did the deed.
Edit: see https://www.livescience.com/49658-animal-sex-octopuses.html and pay particular attention to the phrase “detachable hectocotylus”. (Reminds me of a popular song from some years back…)
arrieve
I love those mosaics. What a wonderful set of photos — thank you!
Lapassionara
Wow! These are wonderful. Thank you.
Miss Bianca
@Mary G: My friend Jacquie really gets around with her tweets! She’s internet-famous now! : )
Shana
I have a sneaking suspicion we’d enjoy vacationing together. Our last trip in 2019 to Venice for the Bienale also included a trip to Aquileia where we were blown away by the mosaics. As you mentioned above, the whole floor of the church is mosaic, and it’s a pretty big church. When we visited we had to wait about a 1/2 hour to view it, there was a baptism happening and tourists weren’t invited.