Roman archaeological structure found on the Circeo promontory, part of the dense system of residential and rural settlements which, according to studies by the Superintendence, now number in the hundreds in this area. The Casarini complex is one of the sites of scientific interest linked to the harbour area of Torre Paola and the lakeside villas, evidence of how widely the promontory was frequented in Roman Republican and Imperial times.
The Casarini archaeological site lies on the small peninsula of the same name along the southern shore of Lake Paola. It is very interesting because it bears the traces of at least four different building phases: the first two Roman, one medieval and the last dating to the 18th century. The name of the place seems to be medieval in origin, deriving from the work of casari, cheese makers, carried out by the monks who lived there. The place is very evocative: it is reached along a lovely woodland path, from which you can spot the many birds that characterise the Park’s wetlands. Now for the site itself. The earliest archaeological evidence dates to the end of the 1st century BC and can be seen from the lake, skirting the small peninsula by canoe or boat. It is concentrated along the northern shore of the area, where you can see the remains of a retaining quay in opus reticulatum, built to correct the natural slope of the ground and create a bank wall. Entering the complex from land, you reach the south-eastern area, and the first, more substantial remains belong to a later phase, from the Flavian-Domitian period. To this phase belong a series of rooms and walls in polychrome opus reticulatum of tuff and limestone and in opus latericium, both belonging to a villa on several levels. These structures seem to revolve around an elliptical room reached by a staircase lined with cocciopesto (hydraulic mortar), leading from the level of the rooms above to a small marble-clad landing. The elliptical room has several openings onto the lake and may have been a passage from the shore to the villa above. Various materials collected throughout the area confirm intense use of the site in the heart of the Imperial period, between the 1st and 2nd centuries AD. The large rectangular hall with wings and an exedra-shaped projection in brickwork, jutting out over the lake at the very tip of the peninsula, must also have belonged to the villa. Traces of wall tubuli along its walls identify it as a tepidarium or caldarium, and therefore as baths serving the villa. The residence must have belonged to a wealthy gentleman who denied himself nothing! The hypothesis is supported by the discovery, in the rectangular hall, of a large basin lined with cocciopesto and with remains of marble slabs. Between this room and the exedra on the lower level, traces of herringbone paving survive in good condition. On current knowledge, the complex seems to date from the second half of the 1st century AD, probably at the same time as the building boom that affected the whole lake area, and in particular Palazzo, site of the splendid imperial villa. After the Roman period the complex went through a third, medieval building phase, dating between the mid-12th century and the arrival of the Templars at the nearby Church of Santa Maria della Sorresca in the 13th century. The rectangular hall of the Roman baths was transformed by the monks into a small hermitage and monastery, part of the network of fortified churches along the shores of the lake. The medieval building was built in continuity with the Roman hall, using its perimeter walls as a base for the side walls, made of courses of limestone and tuff blocks alternating with brick courses, while the exedra was used as an apse. The masonry technique is similar to that of the bell tower of the nearby Sorresca church (second half of the 12th century) and is characterised above all by the recovery and reuse, typical of medieval culture, of Roman building materials. The spolia, or decorative elements, were set in place without respecting their original decorative logic, in the wall faces or at points under greater stress, such as corners or bases. A final phase of reconstruction, involving the rebuilding of the roof, is probably due to Monsignor Callicola, treasurer of Innocent XIII, who in the 18th century was commissioned to restore the Paola Port-Canal and its related structures.