The Roman necropolises of the Varese area told in a book

Varese: The Roman necropolises of the Varese area told in a book.

An essential piece is added to reconstruct the history of the Varese area, bringing to light a series of Roman necropolises present, thanks to the work that the scholar Gabriella Tassinari he collected in the volume “The forgotten burial grounds: the Roman necropolises of Malgesso and Oltrona al Lago (Varese)”. The book will be presented on May 5th at 18.00 pm in the Risorgimento Hall of Villa Mirabello.

The Councilor for Culture Enzo Laforgia underlines: “Gabriella Tassinari's volume constitutes a great enrichment for the knowledge of the Varese territory in antiquity and this important result was also achieved through the study of the documentation preserved in the Topographical Archive of the Archaeological Museum of Villa Mirabello and of the finds preserved in storage of the same museum. These materials are made available to scholars and the public for the first time as part of a rigorous scientific study. The collaboration between the Municipality of Varese, the Varesina Historical Society and the “SARISC” Cultural Association, which led to the publication of Gabriella Tassinari's volume dedicated to the Roman necropolises of the Varese area, represents a virtuous example of collaboration between different entities but united by the love for their territory and for the richness of its history, an important history that deserves to be studied, valorised and made accessible to citizens, because this is the ultimate goal of all research".

Present at the meeting was the author Gabriella Tassinari, graduated in Archeology from the University of Milano and specialized in Archeology at the same University, author of contributions on the Roman necropolises of the Lombardy region. Also present were Professor Giuseppe Armocida of the Varesina Historical Society, Doctor Isabella Nobile, former curator of the Archaeological Museum of Como, and Doctor Fulvia Butti of the Comense Archaeological Society, Doctor Elena Poletti of the Civic Archaeological Museum of Mergozzo.

The necropolises of Malgesso and Oltrona al Lago they are part of an area dotted with archaeological finds. The reconstruction of the realities of Malgesso and Oltrona al Lago fully confirms the profound archaeological unity of the so-called "Ticino district", in which they are located. Noteworthy in several respects are the Malgesso cistern and the Roman furnace of Besozzo. Thanks to a meticulous search among hundreds of objects, it was possible to recover the finds from these two necropolises preserved in the Archaeological Museum of Villa Mirabello, in the “Paolo Giovio” Civic Archaeological Museum of Como, in the Museum of Archeology and Anthropology – University of Cambridge and privately owned.

All the artefacts, previously unpublished, were drawn, photographed, analysed, inserting them, based on comparisons, into the panorama of the Varese area, the wider Lombardy region and the nearby areas.

The author has recomposed the physiognomy of Roman Malgesso, without neglecting the most famous findings of the Iron Age (Golasecca culture). Three results are significant: the uninterrupted continuity of settlement from the Neolithic to the late ancient-early medieval period and beyond; the heterogeneity of Roman materials, which cover a very long chronological span and which indicate different productions; the plurality of funerary areas both from the Roman period and earlier. The Oltrona al Lago burial ground, discovered in 1878, is quite extensive, with a rather long period of attendance from the Augustan age to at least the XNUMXrd-XNUMXth century. AD The period in which these necropolises were discovered was full of archaeological research and discoveries of very important sites, particularly prehistoric, in the Varese area.