In three campaigns covering 10 weeks of fieldwork we documented a series of features
that shed new light on this villa. Thanks to its good state of preservation and the very
limited amount of later building activities and other interventions, we gathered crucial
information on the villa’s original appearance using traces in the construction ground.
New features were discovered by re-measuring and re-excavating, while archaeological and geological surveys conducted by land and under water have fundamentally enhanced our understanding of the villa as a whole. Our new reconstruction of the harbour with an inner and an outer port, once connected by a natural rock arch that had been closed by a rockslide after (or during) the destruction of the villa, changes our overall understanding of the layout and functioning of the whole complex, which now appears to have interacted to an even greater extent with the natural landscape and the open sea. The immediate contact zone between the sea and the rock on which the villa is built yields information on the ground of cuttings made in the rock in order to attach decorative elements along the coastline
and in the inner port. The decoration and design of the seaward side seems to have
been an element of luxury that was stressed.