Earthquake: The Historian's Friend or Foe?

There was a massive earthquake in Assisi in 1997 that was widely publicized...it caused an enormous amount of damage to the Basilica of San Francesco, and technicians have worked for years to try to piece back the frescoes that were smashed, as well as to deal with underlying structural damage.

What wasn't publicized quite so widely is what happened when some public servants had to deal with the damaged elevator in the court building: during the course of excavations underneath the shaft, they uncovered some columns that were covered with stucco...a structure that is typical of Roman domestic architecture.

Intrigued, the public works of Assisi undertook an excavation, and discovered more than they ever could have hoped: an entire house (mansion, really), including intact paving, frescoed interior walls, window structures, and more! The house extends nearly under a city block, including under a lovely hotel restaurant, and is remarkable in its perfection...

The restaurant is really neat because the furnishings are modern over this 2000-year-old floor

I had the opportunity to see this amazing place during a tour of "Assisi underground." Sadly, I wasn't able to take pictures of much of what we saw, but the tour, which extended over 2 1/2 hours, took us through the basement of Sta Maria Maggiore (one of the oldest extant churches of Assisi, dating to 1100 or so, with a Roman house underneath -- we saw the loveliest marble floors -- tentatively attributed to Properzio (a Roman poet every Italian has studied)), to the underpinnings of the Temple of Minerva, into cisterns, and to the foundations of walls built specifically to contain landslides!

Detailed motif in the floor below the restaurant's (glass) floor

The "entry mat" next to the window, presumably in the doorway

Here you can see some of the wall fresco

This shows the thickness of the interior wall

Each tile is less than 1 cm on edge

Wall fresco showing man caressing woman

Window opening (modern reinforcement)...note the pattern change in the doorway.

Columns prompting the initial excavation

Elevator shaft is top-left

Detail of column

More wall fresco work

Love,

Alexandra