The investigation inside the monastery of S. Basilio in L’Aquila took place in July and September 2003, during the restoration of the former hospital of S. Salvatore. The main aim was to obtain more information about a presumed monastic settlement of the Equiziano order dating to the 6th century, which historiography has always either hypothesised or denied, and therefore check for any structures pre-existing the foundation of the town in 1254.
The excavation was concentrated in the area of the monastery chapel, the space in front of the chapel, adjacent rooms and in one of the cloisters situated between the church and the town walls north of the latter, built from 1315 onwards.

Inside the monastery chapel excavation revealed, on a transverse alignment, a cult building with a rectangular plan and single nave. This was flanked by two coeval burials situated in the 18th century chapel and preceded by a court overlooking the plain of L’Aquila to the north. The apse was not found as it was probably situated to the south beyond the side wall of the 18th century chapel, in the present piazza S. Basilio, which will be explored in a future campaign outside the complex.

The most significant data came from the church and cemetery contexts. The “rush combed” buff ware pottery and the sparse glaze ware found in the foundation trench of the west side of the church and in the earth from one of the burials in phase with the church itself, date the ecclesiastical structures and related cemetery to between the 10th and 12th century, at the latest. That is to say at least one and a half centuries before the foundation of the town.