L’insediamento romano di San Basilio (Ariano nel Polesine, Rovigo): tra ricerche d’archivio e nuovi scavi

The paper is focused on the Roman settlement of San Basilio (Ariano nel Polesine, Rovigo), site of a road station depicted in the Tabula Peutingeriana under the name of mansio Hadriani and located along the via Popillia, on the coast of the Adriatic Sea and at a short distance from the Po river. The site, which in the past has yielded numerous Roman structures and findings, is the subject of a research project started in 2022 by the Soprintendenza Archeologia, Belle Arti e Paesaggio for the provinces of Verona, Rovigo and Vicenza in collaboration with the University of Padua and the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, aimed at investigating the settlement in its spatial and chronological extension and articulation. In this paper we present the first results of this project, which has so far consisted in the re-examination of archive data and the restarting of archaeological excavations at one of the building complexes that were part of this settlement, investigated in the 1970s and interpreted as a ‘villa rustica’.