Prior to starting open-area excavation of the remains of the reception pavilion of the Theodorican villa, the 2013 excavations, in the locality of Poderina, near Galatea, had two main objectives. The first was to obtain stratigraphic data from the strip of terrain preserved downhill from the Pantano road, in order to check for the presence of other rooms in phase with the octagonal hall found in 2012. The second was the continuation of the investigation in the sector known as the pars fructuaria of a Roman villa predating the Gothic phase. Here, rooms for wine production (wine cellars, torcularia, doliaria), and a series of kilns had been uncovered during preceding campaigns.
In relation to the Theodorician phases of the site, the excavation evidence showed that the Gothic king’s residence certainly extended south of the present Pantano road, beyond the great chasm perhaps created by an earthquake and in which the Saetta torrent flowed in the medieval period. The trench opened in the strip of terrain preserved to the south of the road revealed several walls delimiting three rooms, coeval with the octagonal hall of the Gothic period. The function of these rooms can only be suggested. The polychrome and geometric mosaic motifs, simpler than those in the octagonal hall, find parallels in the corridor areas in the Domus di Via D’Azeglio, Ravenna. Thus, these three structures may also have functioned as a connecting area and passageway.

Structures relating to various phases of the urban-rustic villa were found in the production sector of the Roman villa, datable to between the last decades of the Republic and the beginning of the 5th century. The most significant find was that of a second kiln, of the same type and practically same date as the one found in 2012, datable to the late Republican-very early imperial period. The new kiln was also of the type with a central corridor, Cuomo Di Caprio type II/b, more square than rectangular in plan, whose notable size indicates it was used for the production of brick/tile, amphora or other ceramic objects of middle to large dimensions. The interior perforated floor including the system of supporting arches with related channels were well- preserved, as were parts of the firing chamber walls, in which the lateral opening for positioning the unbaked bricks was recognisable.