Sirmione, Lago di Garda, Lombardy, 1984. This patrician Roman villa lies at the northern tip of the Sirmio peninsula, a narrow promontory jutting into Lake Garda. It belongs to the commune of Sirmione. The building, which dates from circa AD 150, is the most striking example of a Roman private home in northern Italy. The site is erroneously named “the Grotto of Catullus”, but it is not a grotto. Although the Roman poet Catullus wrote in praise of Sirmio, he died two centuries before the villa was built.
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