This monumental complex is conventionally known as the “Baths of the Painted Stuccos” because of the numerous fragments of III/IV style figured frescoes and stuccos found here. It was discovered in 2013 during rescue excavations close to the archaic route of the Tusculum-Fidenae road, in a slightly raised area facing south-west towards the Fosso dell’Incastro. All of the structures are badly damaged by post First World War agricultural activities, which razed the walls that are now only preserved to a few tens of centimetres in height, while the plan of the rooms partially cut into the leucite bedrock is clearly legible.

The 2013 excavations documented the perimeter walls of several rooms belonging to a large villa built on several levels, with the excavation of two rooms of a bath complex, the calidarium and probable laconicum, and a biclinium or cubiculum.
In 2014, Tor Vergata Rome University began the excavation of the entire bath complex, which continued in 2015. The praefurnium, tepidarium and a natatio were uncovered. The style of the frescoes and material finds date the baths to the Julio-Claudian period.

The rooms adjacent to the baths belong to the villa’s original structure and present several phases dating to the late Republican period. A kitchen, a room with a vat, an apsidal structure, passageways, and a large open courtyard were excavated. In some cases these rooms were radically altered or razed and covered by successive floor surfaces during the course of early imperial changes to the lay out, in particular when the baths were inserted into the villa.

In 2016, the excavations concentrated on the southern sector, uncovering a containing wall built up against the terrain, which marks a terrace on which two rooms were aligned. The rooms had a paving with a stone base, faced towards the south-west and were separated by a corridor that sloped to compensate the difference in height with the terrace below. A room with partially preserved walls, in situ mosaic floor and frescoes was excavated on the east side of the courtyard.

The investigations also provided further information about the imposing system of channels supplying and draining water during the various phases of the villa’s occupation. The supply system was formed by a canalization mainly fed from a large branching tunnel cistern previously investigated by the Superintendency, which was partially intercepted and excavated. A noria was installed in this conduit, situated in the north and eastern parts of the complex. The drainage channels were excavated in the south-western part of the investigated area.