Via San Cosimo archaeological area

Excavation history

The site was discovered in 1971 during the construction of a cistern inside the building that houses the sisters of the congregation of the Daughters of Jesus, in via San Cosimo 3. The excavation was conducted by the then Superintendence of Antiquities of Venice (at present Superintendence of archaeology, fine arts and landscape for the provinces of Verona, Rovigo and Vicenza), which also dealt with the securing of the place so that an archaeological area was created: the San Cosimo area was thus one of the first archaeological areas of the city.

In 2020, the site was given to a non-profit aorganization that, thanks also to a refurbishment intervention, now allows visits to the public.

Description

The oldest part of the site consists of a portion of the ancient Roman walls of the Republican era (more precisely of the second half of the 1st century BC). This portion consists of a foundation, made from cobblestone and just under 4 meters thick, and an elevation made by using sesquipedalian bricks held together by fine lime-based mortar. At the base the wall has a width of 3.60 meters which narrows in section going upwards, by means of some recesses: the outer side, after a base of four rows and two initial recesses of two rows, rose marked by a regular series of recesses, one every six courses of bricks. It is believed that the original height, measured at the chemin de ronde, was of about 8 meters high.

In this portion of the wall it also can be seen the base of a defensive tower that was added after the construction of the original wall, probably ascribable to the emperor Gallienus (3rd century AD). Its dimensions are 5.50 meters long by 3.50 meters wide and it was built using repurposed material, mostly originally part of funerary contexts, bound together with earth mortar. To increase its defensive capabilities on the front side, a triangular spur was later added to the tower, also partially visible.

After the fall of the Roman Empire and under the reign of Theodoric the Great (second half of the 5th century A.D.), another rampart was added to the original city wall that traces closely the path of the previous defense, located a dozen meters further inside and acquired a military function at that time, creating a system with the new Theodoric walls, which were almost twice as high as the Roman ones - as much as 13.65 meters. In the archaeological site of via San Cosimo a portion of this belt is visible, at this point it is distant 8 meters from the original one and that has been preserved up to about 10 meters high.

This Roman-Germanic era rampart was also largely made using bare material coming from both funerary monuments and the demolition of the outer ring of the nearby Veronese amphitheater, from which square blocks of limestone were obtained. …