Photo Galleries

In a quiet corner of central Sicily sit the remains of a villa from the 4th century AD that may have belonged to a former Roman emperor, Maximianus Herculius. The villa, which lay buried for centuries under a mudslide, is remarkable because its floors are covered in some of the biggest, most detailed, and best preserved Roman mosaics in the world. Artisans are thought to have labored there for decades to turn millions of small tiles into room after room of detailed scenes of people, animals, and mythological figures.