The Romans at the spa: care, health and fashion [part 2]
The continuity of settlements in the area, which is still a popular spa town, often caused the definitive loss of traces of the past, which emerge in a fragmentary and occasional way in an ever-expanding urban fabric.
Important data relating to the first systematic excavations, conducted between the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th centuries, were collected in the original graphic and descriptive documentation made by Salvatore Mandruzzato, the author of a trilogy including several precious and detailed tables: “Dei Bagni di Abano”, published in Padua between 1789 and 1804.
The structures, both those that are still visible today and those that were seen and documented in the past, in most cases refer to complexes for the exploitation of thermal water, including tanks, containers and canalizations often connected to residential or even public buildings.
In the main archaeological area of Montegrotto, three large tanks are partially visible and were reported by Mandruzzato. The tanks were connected to one another by a complex system of ducts on several levels and a system for lifting water with a water wheel as well as facilities for hosting visitors, such as arcades, rooms probably used as changing rooms, relaxation areas and nymphaeums, and a small possibly indoor theater where shows and concerts were performed.
New data are also coming from other areas, one of which is being excavated by the School of Specialization in Archeology of the University of Padua, where a complex of structures probably attributable to a rich residential-thermal structure is coming to light.
Text written by Prof. Paola Zanovello, Department of Ancient Sciences, University of Padua
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