Discovered Ercole della Valdelsa, Roman statue of 1,700 years ago

The announcement of the exceptional discovery was made today by the Superintendent Antonella Ranaldi, during the press conference for the presentation of Tourisma – Salone dell’Archeology and Cultural Tourism: the Hercules of the Valdelsa, as was renamed, was restored in record time and will be previewed on the first day of Tourisma on Friday 21 February during the meeting “Last from Tuscany”, organized by the Superintendency of Archeology Fine Arts and Landscape for the Metropolitan City of Florence and the Provinces of Pistoia and Prato (9 am: 30-13: 00) at the Palazzo dei Congressi in Florence. The statue returned to light during the last excavation campaign of the Roman Villa/Mansio (IV-Vso-Vento DC) in the Florentine Valdelsa, by the archaeologists of the Valdelsa Fiorentina Cultural Association and the Sagas Department of the University of Florence, assisted by the foreign students of the Irlab Institute enrolled in the Summer School associated with the excavation.

“The small statue of Hercules today constitutes a precious testimony of the high decorative level of the architectural complex from which it comes, interpretable as a villa of a rich power or, more likely, as Mansio, or a parking station along a Roman road, often Equipped with a thermal annex, as in the case of the Montaione building, “explained the Superintendent Ranaldi. In the same context in the nineteenth century another statue was randomly found, interpretable as Athena, which today is part of the private collection of the land owners on which the excavations insist.

The stratigraphic investigations promoted since 2012 by the Municipality of Montaione have allowed the recovery of other ceramic finds, among which a glyrium, a terracotta container used for the breeding of the ghirs stands out. Among the structures preserved in Situ, a rich annexed annex, decorated with marble and mosaics and parietal mosaics, as evidenced by the discovery of numerous wine testers with the golden lamina, is also particularly interesting.

Currently, a team of experts is conducting a preliminary study on the statue of Ercole, with the restoration carried out with the contribution of the Superintendency of Archeology, Fine Arts and Landscape for the Metropolitan City of Florence and the provinces of Pistoia and Prato. The results of this study suggest a dating of the statue between the average and the late imperial age (III-IV century DC) consistently with the period of maximum architectural and decorative development of the building under the excavation.

Subsequently, the statue will be on display temporarily at the premises of the University of Florence, to then be permanently exhibited at the Civic Museum of Montaione, where numerous archaeological finds from the excavation are preserved.