The great ancient vaulted systems in the area of Campi Flegrei

The foundation of the sumptuous city of Baia is lost in legendary places that act s a frame to numerous Homeric heroes that the mythological literature has handed down after more than two centuries of history. Baia is located on the Phlegrean coast, where Ulysses saw the death of his helmsman Baio; this is an area identified for its highly volcanic nature, as well as for its incomparable beauty, described by Greek and Roman writer and poets, from Homer, to Horace, Ovid and Virgil. «Nullus in orbe sinus Baiis praelucet amoenis» says Horace, describing the amenity and the poetry of the place. This landscape was full of villas, palaces, baths and temples, both full of splendor and elegance. After that, the sea had flooded buildings and streets of the great Roman civilization, the memory of the imperial era splendor and the splendid “ruins” of Baia still continued to decant the beauties of the city. Beetween the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, in the transition from cultural tourism to mass tourism, the Baia ruins became a “obligated place” of the current vedutism and also were one of the main elements of the environmental identification, as praised for its charm and historical memory by foreign poets such as Goethe and Lamartine For over two centuries, the territory of Baia is characterized by archaeological ruins that are a part of the landscape. These gigantic ruins still remain the most authentic qualifying elements of the landscape of Baia and make it unique in the Mediterranean area. The high density of these ruins, as well as the walls, arches and vaults, characterizes the landscape in an unique way. The territory around the small town of Baia is distinguished, therefore, by different and ancient structures covered by different kind of vaults, the so-called trugli. From the greek τροψλλοσ, which means church with dome, Truglio is a big circular hall with vaulted ceiling, which presents a sort of skylight at the top and openings along the walls. But trullus, the word that the Latin took from the Greek, means domed chapel, so in the past to the Truglioalso acted as a temple. Trugli are the Temple of Mercury, the Temple of Venus and the Temple of Diana. The richness of the decorations , of the marble friezes, the presence of the gods’ statues and the large size of the buildings have encouraged, since the beginning, the designation of the “temple”, whereas the latest archaeological research confirm, the hypothesis of thermal purpose, as mentioned by Vitruvius, among scientific and technical considerations. The trugli of Baia not only have challenged the time, but also the geological upheavals that have significantly altered the profile of the coast. They have been preserved until today thanks to a well-builted masonry, made with pozzolan mortar.