Two trenches were excavated during the laying of water pipes in the cloister of the abbey at Maguzzano. _Period I: Roman_ The abbey’s site, in close proximity to the ancient Roman road which led from Verona to Brescia (the present Maccarona road), and several finds had already suggested the presence of a Roman settlement. In fact, coins of Agrippa (1st century B.C.) and one of the emperor Constantine were found. A layer formed by the demolition of a building is also datable to the Roman phase. _Period IIa: early medieval_ This was represented a beaten clay floor cut by a post hole overlain by a layer of burning. _Period IIb: early medieval_ The walls relating to the earliest architectural structures were built in medium sized rough-hewn stone blocks bonded with clay. A hearth lit directly on the floor and a probable burial are of the same phase. _Period IIIa (trench 2): 8th-9th century and Romanesque_ This period is represented by two walls from the same building, perhaps a tower, constructed with medium sized stones bonded with strong white mortar and a sacco foundation trench, faced with large stones and with an emplekton comprising crushed material. _Period IIIb (trench 1)_ This trench revealed a wall on an E-W alignment built of cobbles, worked to produce a regular shape, bonded with strong mortar. The related floor may be a layer of greyish brown loam mixed with fragments of brick, charcoal and mortar. To the north there was another wall linked to a layer of clayey loam, and what remained of a floor surface. _Period IIIc (trench 1)_ This revealed a wall on a N-S alignment which abutted another wall built of irregular sized cobbles bonded by crumbly white mortar. _Period IIId (12th-13th century) (trenches 1 and 2)_ A wall was uncovered on a N-S alignment with facing in cobbles, roughly shaped with a small pick, arranged in regular horizontal courses (12th-13th century), bonded with rather crumbly mortar. _Period IV (trenches 1 and 2)_ Following the demolition of the structures from the earlier phases a series of dumps were used to create a flat site for building. Also present were several phases relating to a garden. (Gian Pietro Brogiolo, Alexandra Chavarrìa Arnau, Silvia Nuvolari)

The abbey of Santa Maria Assunta di Maguzzano stands at less than a kilometre from the banks of Lake Garda, in the municipality of Lonato (BS), on a flat area of the morainal amphitheatre, along the road which led from Verona to Brescia. Its presence here is attested by three cippi from the abbey, two published in the Carta Archaeologica, whilst the third is still unpublished. The first mention of an abbatiola Magonziani appears in a decree of bishop Raterius of Verona, dated around 966 (PL 136, col. 547-550), where it states that the abbey was founded by a private individual, mentioned as the constructor, however without stating when. What is known of other privately founded churches suggests a date between the 7th-9th century. A terminus ante quem is provided by a number of elements of liturgical furnishings datable to the 8th-9th century, found during the 1961-1962 excavations inside the church reconstructed in Renaissance style. In February 2005 during work to lay piping and drains, a number of trenches less than one metre long and of the same depth, were dug in the main cloister and along the west, south and east sides. An interesting stratigraphy emerged in the cloister which suggested the setting up of a pluriennial research project. This took the form of four excavation campaigns which covered circa 500 m2 out of the cloister garden’s total of 900 m2. Due to the presence of the network of service piping and a number of trees it was not possible to undertake an open area excavation. A georadar survey was also conducted across the entire garden area, including the unexcavated north-western area, of the cloister portico and in a number of rooms on the western side (the only area where the buried deposit was not destroyed by the construction of the Renaissance cellars). The survey completed the outline of the plan relating to the sequence of buildings from the site’s diverse occupation phases. The excavation exposed a complex sequence running from the early medieval to modern period. No traces of earlier stratigraphy was found, although it must have existed in the area given the finds of Roman date that were recovered in later levels. On the basis of the building typology, the finds and the C14 dating, the earliest phases documented by the excavation date to the 7th century and relate to a settlement built of perishable materials whose exact size and layout are unknown. Between the end of the 7th and the beginning of the 8th century a building with several rooms was built around a central open space. The walls were stone bonded with clay, with a plaster facing and the floor surfaces of beaten earth. This was a residential building probably belonging to a farm where perhaps the first cult site was constructed on the initiative of the owner. Later, in the 9th century, this was flanked by a church built in the south-western area of the present cloister. In the 9th century a cemetery came into being on the north side of the church. This was a cemetery for the lay aristocracy which gravitated around this church, as revealed by an inscription found inside one of the tombs. The monastery grew during the following centuries and the number of buildings, characterised by better construction techniques and mortar floors, increased. The reconstruction of the cloister in 1492 redrew the monastery’s topography, destroying the original early medieval church and the adjacent structures.