Villa Sulis

It is one of the few buildings in Castelnovo that survived the 1976 earthquake, albeit with some damage: a house with a double loggia in fine yellow local stone in the hamlet of Costa.
The origin of the name is mysterious: Sulis, and the geometry of the façade is refined. The three-arched loggia on the ground floor has six arches on the first floor and on the second floor, where the attic used to be, there are six square windows at the level of the arches. After renovation, the hall on the first floor was named after Manuela Comino, a young victim of the earthquake.
The Villa Sulis School of Ceramics is based here and, since 2018, an archaeological collection has been on display with ceramics found between the 1970s and 1980s in the area of the Crûz hill, not far from Madonna dello Zucco, a well-ventilated place rich in water, elements that favoured production.
The excavations brought to light more than five thousand fragments, representing a part of what was present on the site and which can be dated between the middle and the end of the 16th century. Such a quantity of material, with many scraps, is a sign of the existence of a production site. Workshops used the clay from the castle hills to make mainly tableware and household objects. The Crûz deposit was perhaps the outlet of a kiln that must not have been far away.
Many details remain to be discovered about the long history of pottery production in Castelnovo.
For further information: www.raccoltavillasulis.com