The villa of Poggio del Molino is placed, on the northern side of a headland that acts as a watershed between the beach of Rimigliano in the north and the Gulf of Baratti in the south, in the heart of what was once the territory of one of the most important Etruscan cities, Populonia, overlooking the Tyrrhenian sea. The city was for centuries one of the most flourishing centers of iron smelting and trade all over the Mediterranean. The main objective of the project is to fill as many of the gaps as possible in our knowledge of the history of Populonia and its territory from the early Roman period to the Middle Ages, starting from an important settlement in the Tuscan coast: the villa of Poggio del Molino. We decided to focus our research on the PdM villa because it gives us extraordinary evidence about a “dark period” in Populonia history: the villa was built at the beginning of the 1st century C.E. (when the main city of Populonia started to fall in ruin and be abandoned for unknown reasons) and it is still one of the best evidences in the area about the following centuries, since the villa was continuously inhabited until the beginning of the 6th century C.E. Lo scopo principale del progetto è quello di colmare quante più lacune possibili della nostra conoscenza sulla storia del territorio dall’inizio del periodo romano al medioevo a partire da un importante insediamento della costa toscana: la villa di Poggio del Molino. Abbiamo deciso di concentrare la nostra attenzione sulla villa, perché ci fornisce una straordinaria evidenza del “periodo oscuro” della storia di Populonia: la villa fu costruita agli inizi del I sec. d.C. (quando la città iniziava a cadere in rovina e fu abbandonata per ragioni sconosciute) e costituisce ancora la migliore evidenza per il secolo successivo, poiché fu continuamente abitata fino al VI sec. d.C. A new phase of the life of the site was identified as Late Republican; related to iron working, it served as the economic base of the city of Populonia from the Etruscan period. In the southwestern corner of the site, it was discovered a big structure (perhaps a porch or something similar), around which an iron workshop was settled. Under the layers of Augustan stage, in fact, were found the traces of smelting furnaces used to produce iron with the hematite of Elba Island. Later the area was radically changed. In Augustan Age, in fact, a rustic villa was built on the site, but this phase is still largely unknown. We know just that in the northeast sector there was a thermal area and a productive part, in which there were basins used for the salting of fish, an activity widely attested in the territory of Populonia, both by archaeological evidence and literary sources. During the second half of the 2nd Century C.E., the villa was completely restored becoming a luxurious house: the southwest sector (now hospitalia) was decorated with mosaics on the floors and frescoes on the walls; in the northeast sector new rooms were built in the bath, while the system of basins for the processing of the fish cease to be used. A further change happened in the 4th century C.E., when in the villa resumed the manufacture of iron. In the southeast sector of the villa, substantial evidence of the manufacturing of iron was found. This corresponds, in all probability, with the workshop of a blacksmith, working between the 4th and 5th centuries C.E.

The site is situated on the northern side of the promontory that divides the beach of Rimigliano, to the north, and the Gulf of Baratti to the south. Florence University carried out four excavation campaigns on the site in the 1980s and in 2008, the university resumed its investigations here. The 2015 campaign was funded by the “Associazione Culturale Past in Progress”. In addition to students from Florence University, foreign students also took part in the excavations, in particular from the Arizona University, Hofstra University, Long Island NY and Union College, NY. As the excavation was run as a field school, pupils from Italian schools and volunteers were involved in such activities as sieving, removal of the excavated soil, cleaning, washing, and marking the finds. The research has shown that in the late 2nd century B.C., an imposing fortified building stood on this site, to defend the territory of Populonia against attacks by the pirates that in this period infested the Mediterranean. Between the end of the 1st century B.C. and the first years of the 1st century A.D., the building was transformed into a farm with associated _cetaria_, a structure for the production of _garum_ (fish sauce), equipped with vats for macerating the fish. Around the mid 2nd century A.D., substantial restructuring turned the building into a maritime villa. Arranged around an ample open area forming a garden, the residential rooms, with mosaic floors and painted walls, were on the south-west side (_cubicula_ and _triclinii_ ), the domestic-service quarters with the kitchen and perhaps rooms for the personnel stood on the south-eastern side, while to the north-west stood a baths complex also decorated with mosaics and frescoes. The excavation area covers about 2,500 m2, about one third of which has been investigated to date. Work continued in areas not yet explored in order to uncover more evidence for the main construction phases of the building and its plan, as well as the function of some sectors, and the absolute chronology of the occupation phases alternating with periods of abandonment, which remain unclear. A month long field school for mosaic restoration also took place. Private funding and the collaboration of the Laboratorio di Restauro del Mosaico della Fondazione Ravenna Antica made it possible to begin the definitive (_in_ _situ_) restoration of the eight mosaics presently known on the site, with the completion of the first two this season.

Durante la campagna del 2016, le indagini archeologiche hanno interessato in particolare il settore H, posto nella porzione nord-orientale dell'insediamento. Le ricerche si sono concentrate sui seguenti interventi: - scavo integrale della stratigrafia archeologica della vasca 4 della cetaria (settore orientale dell’area H); - scavo integrale della stratigrafia archeologica della vasca ellittica del _frigidarium_ (settore occidentale dell’area H). Nel settore Nord-orientale del saggio H, lungo il limite Nord del rilievo di Poggio del Molino, è stato condotto lo scavo della stratigrafia archeologica presente all’interno della vasca n. 4 della cetaria, individuata nel corso della campagna di scavo 2012; le strutture di quest’ultima risultano legate ad Ovest alla vasca n. 3 e a Nord alla vasca n. 5, in larga parte crollata nella scarpata sottostante. Seppur solo in parte strutturalmente analoghe alle vasche 1 e 2, le due vasche 4 e 5 costituiscono tuttavia un sistema coerente con le vasche nn. 1-3, costituendo il settore più antico dell’impianto per la lavorazione del pesce. La vasca, che misura 2,08x1,90 cm risulta delimitata da muretti in blocchetti di panchina sui tutti i lati tranne che su quello meridionale, dove si trova il muro perimetrale della cetaria. Uno strato di cocciopesto idraulico dello spessore di 1,5 cm, caratterizzato dalla presenza di pulvini verticali in corrispondenza degli angoli interni, ricopre l’intera superficie interna della vasca; una piccola depressione circolare di 30 cm circa di diametro, ubicata al centro della vasca. La profondità conservata della vasca (160 cm), consente di calcolarne in almeno 1,5 metri cubi la capacità produttiva. Al termine della campagna 2015 le indagini condotte nel settore Occidentale dell’area H hanno permesso di definire la topografia del _frigidarium_ delle terme, realizzate nella seconda metà del II sec. d.C. e quindi pertinenti alla fase della villa residenziale; è stato possibile mettere in evidenza in particolare la presenza di una vasca più piccola e di una più grande, di forma ellittica, entrambe parzialmente individuate nel corso delle indagini degli anni ’80. La campagna di scavo 2016 ha consentito di indagare l’interno della piscina ellittica: gli strati progressivamente individuati e rimossi, purtroppo privi di reperti cronologicamente significativi, sono risultati tuttavia indicativi delle attività legate alla calcara; essi hanno infatti restituito i materiali di scarto dell’attività di spoliazione, gettati nella calcara al momento del suo abbandono. Accanto a numerosi frammenti di tubuli, si contano moltissimi frammenti di intonaco dipinto di colore rosso, giallo e verde, di intonaco di colore bianco pertinente ai soffitti e frammenti di vetro da finestra. La calcare stessa risulta costituita da un piccolo muro semicircolare, appoggiato ai muri Est ed Ovest della piscina e realizzato per mezzo di blocchi di panchina squadrati di grandi dimensioni, di macigno e di laterizi fratti legati, legati da malta; esso delimita nel settore Nord della piscina uno spazio ellittico (158x155 cm), all’interno del quale il materiale edilizio spoliato dall’impianto termale veniva separato dalla malta.