For years, a Bacolithat stretch of coast in the province of Naples he spoke above all of public restitution: the nineteenth-century villa overlooking the sea, the park, the property stolen from the Camorra, the profile of the Aragonese Castle of Baia just above. Now the ground beneath that scene has regained its voice. Inside and in front of Villa Ferrettiin via Lucullo, the remains of a large one are emerging Roman villa overlooking the bay, a complex that the Superintendence refers to Publius Cornelius Dolabellafigure of the Caesarian age and son-in-law of Cicero.
The discovery has a weight that goes beyond a glance. Here the Roman structures were already partly known, however the valorisation works and investigations of recent years have given the site a much more readable profile. The walls in opus reticulatum identified in the park they belong to a large building arranged on at least five overlapping terraces, with a height difference of more than twenty metres. The underwater investigations then added another piece, bringing to the surface rooms, porticoes and pavilions connected to the now submerged part of the complex.
Terraces, opus reticulatum walls and rooms that descend towards the sea
The most fascinating point lies precisely in the relationship between land and water. The surviving evidence outlines a monumental complex facing scenically towards the sea, in a stretch of coast that in Roman times appeared more advanced than today due to bradyseismic phenomena. The interpretative hypothesis is that of one leisure villa of large proportions, with a part perhaps also destined for productive activities. In the Campi Flegrei, where the landscape has been moving for centuries and the border between emerged and submerged remains mobile, this continuity makes Villa Ferretti a rare case. The Federico II University describes it as a decisive coastal segment for reconstructing the environments of the Roman villa and, more generally, for better understanding the ancient Bay.
The name of Dolabella, in this picture, remains strong and delicate at the same time. The institutional sources use slightly different formulas: on the one hand they speak of a complex “attributed” or “attributable” to P. Cornelio Dolabellaon the other they maintain a margin of prudence and in a university text we read “perhaps belonged”. It is the serious way in which archeology works when the picture is convincing, but not armored by a single and definitive proof. The trail remains very solid on a historical level, given that it takes us into the Bay of the Roman elite, among maritime villas, otium and architecture built to overlook the gulf.
All around, the context speaks for itself. Villa Ferretti stands at the foot of the Aragonese Castle, on the border with the area of the Submerged Archaeological Park of Baia, in one of the densest points of stratification of the Campi Flegrei. The home of the new Office of Underwater Archaeology of the Superintendency, inaugurated here in July 2025, was created precisely for this reason: the site is located in front of significant underwater structures and for the first time the institution has opened a permanent headquarters dedicated exclusively to the management of underwater heritage.
From property confiscated from the Camorra to an archaeological park
The civil part of the story has the same strength as the archaeological part. Villa Ferretti was built at the end of the nineteenth century by shipowners of Genoese origin; in the 1990s it was purchased by Camorra circles and confiscated in 1997. In 2003 the complex passed to the Municipality of Bacoli, which turned it into a public park. From there a long, at times slow, transformation began, which today is being consolidated with research, cultural enjoyment and valorisation of the landscape.
In March 2022, the Municipality then sold Villa Ferretti free of charge for 99 years to the Federico II University, which started academic activities there in the same year. This passage helps to better understand what is happening now: the place no longer lives as a simple panoramic container, it lives as a study space, cultural garrison and laboratory on the relationship between coast, seabed and urban memory.
The new archaeological walk inaugurated on 6 February 2026 adds concreteness to this turning point. The interventions involved the safety and restoration of various environments, the identification of new underground spaces and the valorisation of decorative elements and finds. The route accompanies visitors to the top of the last terrace and tries to keep together two levels that often travel separately: the reading of the landscape and that of the ruins.
Then there is the administrative part, which often seems gray and instead says a lot about the real future of the places. A decree of the Ministry of Culture of 30 January 2026 provides 40 thousand euros for the excavation and valorization of the archaeological area in front of the sea front of Villa Ferretti. A few weeks later, the. appears in a regional ranking archaeological compendium of Villa Ferretti with a loan of 2 million euros. On a political and symbolic level, the Municipality presents the project as the first municipal archaeological park in an asset confiscated from organized crime: a demanding formula, certainly, but sufficient to make people understand the ambition of the construction site opened in Bacoli.
Sometimes a city finds an artefact in its hands. Here we also found a trajectory. Above is the recent story of an asset stolen from the Camorra and returned to the community. Below, and partly inside the sea, there is a Roman Bacoli that is slowly becoming visible again. The stone started talking again right there.
