Villa Sora. Scavi in situ et alibi: riletture e nuovi dati

The villa maritima near the modern Torre del Greco (Naples) has a long modern history. Its life as archaeological object began at least four hundred years ago. During the first half of the XVII century some Roman finds started to see the light in the site of Contrada Sora: the most famous, between these, is the neoattic marble relief with Orpheus and Euridyces now in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale at Naples. The following most important chapters of its modern life are the excavations by Francesco I Borbone (1797- 1798) and those by the Soprintendenza archeologica di Pompei (1989, 1992). Both confirmed the importance of the site, bringing to light two residential areas. Since 2015 the archeological site of Villa Sora is the subject of the omonymous research project of the University of Bologna. This article proposes a state of the art, focusing on the open questions, and a critical review, of what we known, or we think we known, about the Roman (and late-antique) material evidence in Contrada Sora.