Ospedale Militare - Giardino Storico - Sacello Romano

A terraced historic garden on Taranto's Borgo side preserves a small Roman shrine of the late Republican age, its plaster still banded in red.

Why it matters

The historic garden occupies part of the former grounds of the Villino di Santa Lucia, commissioned by archpriest Monsignor Capecelatro in the late eighteenth century. Decorative features include a pair of stone lions. A Roman sacellum, or small shrine, discovered in 1901, is probably datable to the late Republican period, between the second and first centuries BC.

What to notice

The sacellum is a single rectangular room of about ten square metres, built in opus incertum, the irregular masonry typical of the period. It does not stand alone: it is connected to other structures whose purpose has not yet been determined, so the room reads as a fragment of a larger Roman complex. The walls retain their interior plaster with painted decoration in vertical red bands, and trapezoidal-section pilasters on moulded bases line the walls; only one pilaster keeps its decoration, a lit torch, which has suggested a dedication to a deity connected with the underworld. A central altar appears to have been assembled from reused materials. No archaeological material or written source establishes which deity was worshipped there, so no identification has been made. In the garden, note the surviving statuary and the stone lions that survive from the villa's ornamental scheme.

Context and history

The shrine's discovery in 1901 came during work in an area that antiquarians had long known was rich in Roman remains; Taranto's Borgo side covers part of the ancient city's extension beyond the acropolis island. The garden's history is more recent: the Villino di Santa Lucia grounds passed into the hospital complex, and the greenery now functions as the hospital's historic garden, overlapping the old villa's property.