Studying the lagoon to know and understand nature and biodiversity, but also the multi -culture relationship between man and this particular environment, where cities and ecosystem coexist in a delicate balance. This, in particular, the thread of the activities of the Museum of Natural History of Venice Giancarlo Ligabue, which among the most important events of 2025 hosts the return of the research project carried out by the Ca ‘Foscari University of Venice: the discovery of a particular archaeological site submerged in the Venice Lagoon, in Lio Piccolo, Cavallino-Treporti.
It is here that underwater stratigraphic investigations started in 2021 they brought to light a brick tank and wooden tables containing about 300 oysters shells: a structure dating back to the first century AD and interpreted as an ancient ‘Ostriarium’: a space intended for the maintenance of these mollusks before their consumption. To date, a unique discovery in Italy, which finds a single comparison known in the Narbonne lagoon, in France.
Part of these significant finds, finds, images, videos of underwater excavation operations and research activities, as well as a three -dimensional model of the Lagunare Archaeological Site will be exhibited at the Museum of Natural History from 16 April to 2 November 2025: a set -up that returns the first results of this research project, providing further information on the inhabitants of the lagoon in the Roman imperial era and that, not least, highlights the importance of a job. of interdisciplinary scientific research that involved archaeologists, geologists, biologists, to return the results of this investigation to the public and invite to the discovery and knowledge of the wealth of the lagoon.
The archaeological site of Lio Piccolo, reported in 1988 by Ernesto Canal who, first, had hypothesized to see the remains of a Roman villa, is located along the southern bank of Canale Rigà. About 300 common oyster shells were found on the bottom of the tank (Ostrea Edulis), especially gradually disappeared from the lagoon in the second half of the nineteenth century, and some shells of other crossroads, such as the Canestrelli. The bulkheads, as happened in the fishing at sea of Roman age, probably allowed the insulation between the different species.
The derocronological analyzes and the dating to carbon 14 of the wooden parts lead to dating the construction of the structure in the middle of the first century in contact with the Vivarium are found in bricks supported by a forest of poles in oak that had to belong to a rather important building built in the same period.
Hundreds of fragments of fresco, mosaic cards and some plates of fine marbles make the building interpret as a possible luxury villa, perhaps just one of those maritime villas that Martial, at the end of the first century AD, places in the altin shores. Among the most important finds, also a precious gem that was to adorn the frame of a ring of a very wealthy person attendant of the Ostriarium.
The museum, which preserves very important scientific collections of the largest local scientists and naturalists, still continues to study the lagoon, to understand the relationship so unique that binds the city to its territory and guarantee the continuous physical documentation of the environment and its transformations. A mission that can only be realized by collaborating with the other institutional realities that work and study the lagoon in its most diverse areas and aspects. In this perspective, the collaboration with the Department of Humanities of the Ca ‘Foscari University was born, to enhance a research project that offers us unpublished information on fish activities in the lagoon at the time of imperial Rome.
The Venice Lagoon is, this year more than ever, the theme that connects the museum’s activities. Through exhibitions, conferences and meetings – such as the next summer events at the Museum – the Museum of Natural History of Venice undertakes to make the knowledge acquired accessible, involving not only experts in the sector, but also the wider public. The dissemination thus becomes the last but indispensable piece, of a path that enhances the past to better understand the present and the future of the Venice lagoon.
The research project of the Ca ‘Foscari University of Venice – Department of Humanistic Studies is made possible thanks to funding from the University, the Municipality of Cavallino Treporti, the Changes Pnrr project and a Prin -Pnrr project, in collaboration with the Department of Geosciences of the University of Padua (Professor Paolo Mozzi) and the Department of Sciences of the University of Florence (Professor Adele Bertini).