Gaby
Lake Fusaro sits in the municipality of Bacoli, in Italy’s Naples province, within the Phlegraean Fields—a geologically unstable volcanic region known for bradyseismic activity. Bradyseism is the gradual rising or sinking of the Earth’s surface caused by movement of magma or hydrothermal fluids underground. An unexpected result of that bradyseism is that the remains of a Roman villa have emerged from the waters of Lake Fusaro. Aerial photographs captured the ruins, Heritage Daily reported.
Bacoli’s mayor, Josi Gerardo Della Ragione, said walls, rooms, and what may be thermal baths have surfaced from the lakebed. Experts from the Naples Superintendency for Archaeology, Fine Arts and Landscape will now examine the finds. The Phlegraean Fields are a vast caldera formed by a volcanic eruption roughly 12,000 years ago. Research from the Italian National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology shows the ground in this area has risen about 138 centimeters since 2005, with 20 centimeters of that occurring in 2024 alone. That uplift has raised the seabed and pushed back the coastline, complicating access to some ports and docks along the shore.
Nearby lie partially submerged remains of the Roman city of Baiae, which was a popular resort in antiquity. Sextus Propertius, a poet from the era of Augustus (1st century BC–early 1st century AD), described Baiae as a “whirlwind of luxury” and a “harbor of vice.” Across the Bay of Naples are the ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum, two major Roman cities destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD.
