#Piazza Armerina

[wandering-italy]

The bedroom of the guest suite. It has an, um, interesting center mosaic.

Villa Romana del Casale

Piazza Armerina, Sicily

[recherchestetique]

Emilio Pucci's bikini inspired by the mosaics of Piazza Armerina in the 1950s

[page-28]

[publicobsessions]

[ancientcharm]

Roman mosaic floor. Villa del Casale. Piazza Armerina, Sicily, Italy. The colorful mosaics of this villa are among the best preserved in the world.

[soaveintermezzo]

Villa Romana del Casale - Piazza Armerina, Enna, Sicilia, Italia.

[onefootin1941]

Magnificent Roman floor mosaic of the Villa Romana del casale in Piazza Armerina, Sicily, Italy.

[moradadabeleza]

Napoli doğumlu İtalyan modacı Emilio Pucci’nin, Villa Romana del Casale’deki (Piazza Armerina, Sicilya) Bikinili Kızlar Mozaiği’nden esinlenerek tasarladığı ve ‘Siciliana’ adını verdiği İlkbahar-Yaz koleksiyonunun katalog çekiminden kareler. Elsa Haertter‘in kadrajından, 1955

[wandering-italy]

A floor mosaic found in the Villa Romana del Casale (often called Piazza Armerina), a 4th century Ancient Roman villa in Central Sicily. This villa has some of the best preserved in situ Roman mosaics in Italy.

Dec. 2019

[yaellaharpe-blog]

MOSAICO DE LA VILLA ROMANA DEL CASALE

(Español / English)

La Villa Romana del Casale, situada en la pintoresca localidad siciliana de Piazza Armerina, es un tesoro arqueológico que data del IV siglo d.C. Esta villa romana tardía fue incluida en la lista del Patrimonio de la Humanidad por el UNESCO en 1997.

He aquí algunos detalles fascinantes sobre la historia de esta extraordinaria residencia:

Descubrimiento casual: En el siglo XVII, los campesinos que trabajaban en los campos del alto valle del río Gela, al pie del monte Mangone, notaron numerosas estructuras de pared que emergían del suelo. Estas revelaron entonces que pertenecieron a la grandiosa villa imperial del Casale. El entusiasmo por este hallazgo atrajo la atención de muchos eruditos locales.

Mosaicos excepcionales: La Villa Romana del Casale es famosa sobre todo por su extraordinaria colección de mosaicos, perfectamente conservados en el tiempo gracias a una capa de barro causada por una antigua inundación. Estos mosaicos decoran los pisos y representan escenas mitológicas, animales, juegos y actividades diarias. Son un verdadero espectáculo para los ojos y testimonian la riqueza y el gusto artístico de la época romana.

Estructura monumental: El chalet incluye Cubículos, Vestíbulos,Peristilos, Ambulacri, Triclini, Diaete, Acueductos, Latrine y Termas. La disposición en diferentes niveles recuerda el ejemplo de la villa del emperador Tiberio en Capri. La magnificencia de los mármoles, de las columnas y de los suelos de mosaico desafía incluso la morada de Diocleciano en Split.

La Villa Romana del Casale es un viaje al pasado, un lugar donde la historia y el arte se funden en una experiencia extraordinaria. Si alguna vez tienes la oportunidad de visitarla, te recomiendo admirar estos mosaicos únicos y sumergirte en la antigua grandeza de este lugar mágico.

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MOSAIC OF THE ROMAN VILLA DEL CASALE

The Villa Romana del Casale, located in the picturesque Sicilian town of Piazza Armerina, is an archaeological treasure dating back to IV century AD. This late Roman villa has been listed as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1997.

Here are some fascinating details about the history of this extraordinary residence:

Random discovery: In the XVII century, farmers working in the fields of the upper valley of the river Gela, at the foot of the mountain Mangone, noticed numerous wall structures emerging from the ground. They later revealed that they belonged to the grand imperial villa of the Casale. The enthusiasm for this discovery attracted the attention of many local scholars.

Exceptional mosaics: Villa Romana del Casale is famous for its extraordinary collection of mosaics, perfectly preserved over time thanks to a layer of mud caused by an ancient flood. These mosaics decorate the floors and represent mythological scenes, animals, games and daily activities. They are a real spectacle for the eyes and testify to the richness and artistic taste of the Roman period.

Monumental structure: The villa includes Cubicles, Vestibules, Peristili, Ambulatories, Triclini, Diaete, Aqueducts, Latrine, and Terme. The layout on different levels recalls the example of the Emperor’s villa Tiberius on Capri. The magnificence of the marbles, columns and mosaic floors defies even the abode of Diocletian in Split³.

The Villa Romana del Casale is a journey into the past, a place where history and art come together in an extraordinary experience. If you ever have the opportunity to visit it, I recommend that you admire these unique mosaics and immerse yourself in the ancient greatness of this magical place .

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[nancydrewwouldnever]

Unknown Roman mosaicist, Villa Romana del Casale: Mosaic Showing Female Athletes Competing for Prizes, ca. 300-325 CE, mosaic (Piazza Armerina, Sicily)

[publicobsessions]

[ancientcharm]

Roman Villa, known as Villa del Casale. Piazza Armerina, Sicily. UNESCO World Heritage Site.

[blackswaneuroparedux]

The bikini is the most important thing since the atom bomb.

Diana Vreeland

The origins of contemporary bikini day may be traced back to a French engineer, a Parisian exotic dancer, a nuclear testing site in the United States, and a postwar fabric shortage.

In 1946, Western Europeans joyously greeted the first war-free summer in years, and French designers came up with fashions to match the liberated mood of the people. Two French designers, Jacques Heim and Louis Réard, developed competing prototypes of the bikini. Heim called his the “atom” and advertised it as “the world’s smallest bathing suit.”

French fashion designer Louis Reard was determined to create an even more scandalous swimsuit. Réard's swimsuit, which was basically a bra top and two inverted triangles of cloth connected by string, was in fact significantly smaller. Made out of a scant 30 inches of fabric, Réard promoted his creation as “smaller than the world’s smallest bathing suit.”

Réard claimed that the bikini was named for Bikini Atoll, the site of nuclear tests by the United States in the Pacific Ocean.

Louis Réard's bikini was so little that he couldn't find anyone brave enough to wear it. After being rejected by a number of fashion models, he came across Micheline Bernardini. She was a 19-year-old nudist at the Casino de Paris who consented to be the first to try on his daring bikini. Michelle Bernardini debuted this revealing costume at the Piscine Molitor in Paris during a poolside fashion show, and it revolutionised swimwear on 5 July 1946. The bikini was a hit, especially among men, and Bernardini received some 50,000 fan letters.

Before long, bold young women in bikinis were causing a sensation along the Mediterranean coast. Spain and Italy passed measures prohibiting bikinis on public beaches but later capitulated to the changing times when the swimsuit grew into a mainstay of European beaches in the 1950s. Réard's business soared, and in advertisements he kept the bikini mystique alive by declaring that a two-piece suit wasn’t a genuine bikini “unless it could be pulled through a wedding ring.”

But it really took when what we would call cultural influencers took to it. It was in 1953, thanks to Brigitte Bardot, that the bikini became a "must-have" and the history of the bikini became historic, when she was photographed wearing one on the Carlton beach at the Cannes Film Festival. She also wore one in 1956, in the film "Et Dieu… créa la femme".

The United States also caught on to the trend, as it was only two years later that Ursula Andress posed in a white bikini on the poster for the James Bond film, Dr. No. The poster created a considerable marketing coup, and women adopted the bikini. According to a study by Time, 65% of younger women adopted the bikini in 1967.

There is no question the bikini is hardly modern. Many think they date back to ancient Roman times because of the murals uncovered in excavated ruins in Sicily. This isn’t really true.

Despite the celebrated images from the mosaics in Piazza Armerina, of the ancient Roman girl wearing what looks like a bikini, the answer is, “not really”.  The ancient Roman girls weren’t even first to wear what to our eyes looks like a bikini. However, the fact that we seem to find “bikinis” in ancient depictions should make us rethink our hubristic bias that we in modern times have invented everything and that people in ancient times didn’t know how to live.

Archaeologists have found evidence of bikini-like garments that date to as far back as 5600 BC. That’s roughly 5000 years before the Romans did so. In the Chalcolithic era of around 5600 BC, the mother-goddess of Çatalhöyük, a large ancient settlement in southern Anatolia, was depicted astride two leopards while wearing a bikini-like costume.

Two-piece garments worn by women for athletic purposes are depicted on Greek urns and paintings dating back to 1400 BC. In fact, even just the notion that women participated in sports in the ancient world should make us sit up and take notice.

Today we tend to imagine women in the ancient world as being practically sequestered in their homes, spinning, weaving and having babies. But this is a gross oversimplification of their role.

Active women of ancient Greece wore a breast band called a mastodeton or an apodesmos, which continued to be used as an undergarment in the Middle Ages. While men in ancient Greece abandoned the perizoma, partly high-cut briefs and partly loincloth, women performers and acrobats continued to wear it.

In the famous mosaics to be found at Villa Romana del Casale in Piazza Armerina, the girls who seem to be wearing the “bikini” are Roman and the so-called bikini had already been around for at least 5,000 years by then. In the artwork “Coronation of the Winner” done in floor mosaic in the Chamber of the Ten Maidens (Sala delle Dieci Ragazze) in Sicily the bikini girls are depicted weight-lifting, discus throwing, and running.

The bikini was gradually done away as Christianity became more influential as the centuries wore on. Christian attitudes towards swimming restricted the clothing of women for centuries, the bikini disappeared from the historical record after the Romans until the early 20th century with Louis Beard’s re-invention of the two piece bathing suit as the ‘bikini’.

Photos: In 1956 Emilio Pucci designed this bikini inspired by the mosaics of the Villa Romana Del Casale in Sicily.

[ateneanike]

Villa del Casale Piazza Armerina en Sicilia.

Sus mosaicos son de los más espectaculares del mundo.