Grottoes of Catullus

Listen first. Small waves move against flat slabs of pale limestone below you. Wind passes through the silver leaves of the olive trees. Underfoot, the path is dry and crunches a little with every step. Ahead, broad walls of stone and thin Roman brick rise out of the grass. Beyond them there is nothing but water, blue and wide. You are standing at the very tip of the Sirmione peninsula, on the southern shore of Lake Garda.

These ruins are called the Grottoes of Catullus. The name is a little misleading on both counts. These are not caves, and they almost certainly did not belong to the poet Catullus. They are the remains of one of the largest Roman private villas ever found in northern Italy. Most scholars date the building to the end of the first century before Christ, or the early decades after. That was the age of the emperor Augustus, when Rome's wealthy elite were building grand country homes.

So why grottoes? The answer comes from much later. During the Renaissance, curious visitors climbed through this headland. The villa had collapsed centuries before. Earth, roots and ivy covered the broken vaults. To those early explorers, the dark arched openings looked like natural caves. They called them grotte, the Italian word for grottoes. The name stayed, even after archaeologists cleared the site and showed what it really was.

And Catullus? Gaius Valerius Catullus was one of Rome's great lyric poets. He lived in the first century before Christ, and his family came from nearby Verona. He wrote a short and tender poem about coming home to Sirmio — the ancient name of Sirmione. In it, he calls the place the little eye of peninsulas and islands. Because of that poem, people later linked this villa to him. But the main building is probably younger than the poet. The connection is a tradition, a beautiful one, not a proven fact.

Here is something many visitors miss. Most of the walls you see were never meant to be seen. The headland slopes down toward the lake. To create one level platform for the house, the Roman builders raised huge supporting structures underneath. The rooms where the owners actually lived stood on top. Those upper floors have almost completely disappeared. What survives is the foundation — the hidden engine room of a palace. You are walking through its basement.

That changes how you read the ruins. Imagine the true villa floating above your head. Picture painted walls, marble floors and wide terraces open to the lake on three sides. The owners could look north up the long body of Lake Garda, toward the mountains. From the east and west sides, they could watch the sun rise and set over the water. Few homes in the Roman world had a setting like this one.

As you explore, look for the long covered corridor that archaeologists call a cryptoporticus. This is a Roman word for a vaulted passage, partly below ground. These corridors kept cool in summer and gave shelter in winter. Wealthy Romans used them for slow walks and quiet conversation. Here, the corridor also helped to carry the weight of the house above. Notice how long and straight it runs. Roman engineers liked order, even in places no guest would ever visit.

Stop and study the walls themselves. You will see small stones set in mortar, with horizontal bands of flat red brick running through them. This mixed technique made walls strong and quicker to build. Look closely at the surface, too. In some places, square holes run in neat rows. Builders used them to hold wooden scaffolding while the walls went up. Two thousand years later, the holes are still there, like a record of the working day.

Some parts of the site have names given by later visitors. One great space is known as the Hall of the Giants, because of the enormous fallen blocks of wall found there. Another spot, a view framed by three arches, is called the Paradise Window. Stand inside it and look out. The stone frame cuts the lake into a picture. It is easy to understand why people gave it such a name.

The villa did not last forever. In the later Roman period, the building seems to have fallen out of use. Over time, people took away stone, brick and marble to reuse in new buildings. Parts of the structure collapsed. The headland became farmland and wild ground. For centuries, only the broken vaults showed that something important had once stood here. Systematic excavation and study came much later, and work on the site has continued into modern times.

Before you leave, visit the small museum near the entrance. It holds objects found during excavations here and elsewhere in Sirmione. Look for the fragments of painted plaster. Their colours are faded now, but you can still see reds, yellows and fine lines of decoration. These pieces are the best clue to how the lost upper rooms once looked. They turn the grey ruins outside back into a home.

Now walk to the edge of the site and look down at the shore. Below the cliffs, wide shelves of smooth pale rock run out under the shallow water. On warm days, swimmers lie on them like seals. The water over the rock is often a clear, light green. Sirmione has a long relationship with water. The town is also known for its warm thermal springs, which rise from deep under the lake bed.

Take a final moment among the olive trees. The lake is still moving against the rocks, just as it did when the Romans built here. The same wind crosses the same headland. As you walk back toward the town, look at the old stone houses and the narrow lanes. Somewhere in their walls, there may be a brick or a block carried from this villa... still doing its work, long after its owners were gone.