Interesting Sites Nearby
User Reviews
Orbe-Boscéaz, also named Boscéay, is an archaeological site located at the territory of the town of Orbe (Vaud). On the site of Boscéaz, five pavilions protect the largest site of Roman mosaic in Switzerland. These mosaics decorated a vast Roman villa built between the first and the third century AD, including private baths and a temple dedicated to Mithra.
The first known mosaics are discovered in 1841. Between 1986 and 2004, the villa was a field school for students in archaeology of université de Lausanne. These excavations allowed the study of the whole residential part of the domain (including the discovery of the ninth mosaic, now being restored). They also allowed to determine that the site was occupied since the Neolithic, but also during the Bronze Age and the Iron Age.
The whole site is classified by the Swiss Inventory of Cultural Property of National and Regional Significance. A welcome center houses a scale model of the villa, an introduction video and a shop.
References:The Church of St Donatus name refers to Donatus of Zadar, who began construction on this church in the 9th century and ended it on the northeastern part of the Roman forum. It is the largest Pre-Romanesque building in Croatia.
The beginning of the building of the church was placed to the second half of the 8th century, and it is supposed to have been completed in the 9th century. The Zadar bishop and diplomat Donat (8th and 9th centuries) is credited with the building of the church. He led the representations of the Dalmatian cities to Constantinople and Charles the Great, which is why this church bears slight resemblance to Charlemagne's court chapels, especially the one in Aachen, and also to the Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna. It belongs to the Pre-Romanesque architectural period.
The circular church, formerly domed, is 27 m high and is characterised by simplicity and technical primitivism.