DESENZANO DEL GARDA

Built in two very different periods of time, this little town is a witness of very important archaeological discoveries.
Parts of sculptures, fresco's traces and others findings, together with a lot of rooms of the archaeological complex, give us occasion for an historical tour, back in the past. If we had to trace an "obligatory" route, we should include: the big olive grove, the way of the workshops, the big pillar, the mullion window with three lights, the horse cave, the giants hall, the two opening portico- crypt, the bath, the swimming pool and the resevoir (that are, probably, a part of a wider thermal structure). The mild microclimate allows the growing of a vegetation with typical species coming from Mediterranean latitudes such as laurel, olive, palm, oleander. Bordering territories presents wide hills areas which become an ideal ground for wine-growing and producing cultivation particularly Lugana and Tocai wine.
Thanks to its climate Desenzano is a very popular resort, a tourist destination all over the year. The little town includes also a tourist dock which is very serviceable to the lake navigation together with real good road connections.
Heart of the town is Malvezzi square, which is rich of very interesting environmental values. On the old dock, inside the urban structure, old town hall porticoes appear, this town hall was carried out by Giulio Todeschini.
The structure of the medieval castle (fourteenth -fifteenth cent.) appears on the background of the square with Angela Merici (fifteenth -sixteenth cent.) monument, it was erected on the romano Castrum ruins (only strong walls and towers reached us nowadays).
Saint Mary Magdalene parish church dates back to the sixteenth cent, and was realised by Giulio Todeschini architect.
The inside is composed by a nave and two aisles and presents Tiepolo's l'Ultima cena, some Zenon Veronese, Celesti's and other masters paintings. In the Bagatta palace we can admire a Deposition that was probably made by the young Palma.
Desenzano roman origin is witnesses in an incomparable way by the roman Villa, third-fourth cent., discovered in the beginning of the twenties.
We can easily reconstruct, because of this ruins, the sequence of the rooms from the octagon to the peristyle, to the apse halls, to the ninfeo, to the library, to the tablino. The element that stands out mostly is made by mosaic floorings, which representing allegoric scenes, geometric motifs, hunting and fishing scenes which stand out for living chromatic tonalities.

ANTIQUARIUM

In proximity of the roman Villa, inside a building, an Antiqaurium was built, it collects a lot of findings, discovered in the Regio Borgo (one of the most ancient side of the little town), probably related to a roman installation. Between the exposed discoveries we can admire sculpture elements, oil-lamps, amphoras, bronze tools, architectural elements, pluteo ruins, little millstones. Particularly we find a children Bacco of the first-second cent a. C., which is a reproduction of the Greek original, the bust of a children with a crown (fourth cent.), a decorated glass ball and parts of mosaic floorings.
Along the Lungo Lago steps we can see the, so-called, Attilia Urbica sarcophagus, a white stone urn with a roof top made by veronese red marble, embellished by relieves and epigraphs. The witnesses of a roman presence in Desenzano are an apse structure of the second half of the fourth cent. and a building with five mosaic floorings placed one over the other, that we can date back between the first b. C. cent and second a. C. cent.