The archaeological garden of the hospital is a public garden located near the in Lisieux, France, in the Calvados department (Normandy). The Gallo-Roman remains on display were uncovered during archaeological excavations led by , carried out from 1978 to 1985, and include a thermal bath building and a private structure. Archaeologists could trace the history of this neighborhood from the 1st century to the 3rd century.

During the excavations, a rich and high-quality painted décor was discovered—"an excellent testimony to Roman painting in Gaul in the 2nd century." Figured representations similar to those found at this site are exceptional, with fewer than six sets of this quality known in Gaul as of the mid-1990s.

History In February 1967, during the construction of the boiler room for the new Robert-Bisson hospital center, important remains of Roman buildings were fortuitously discovered but not preserved, except for two altars and sculpted elements uncovered during emergency excavations and surveys conducted in February–March. Unfortunately, this excavation made it possible to "measure the extent of the destruction already done."

Due to the discovery of a large block of stone and sculpted elements, the excavators first thought they had found a public building. At this point, significant fragments of painted plaster of a quality superior to anything previously found in the region were discovered, including fragments of Pompeian red plaster and other elements that had belonged to particularly elaborate decorative panels. The first ceramic elements found date to the 1st and early 2nd centuries.

Claude Lemaître was able to make a few observations in January 1971. In 1977, trial trenches were dug on a nearby plot.

Excavations were conducted nearby from 1978 to 1979 for the private building and from 1978 to 1982 for the bath complex. The excavation campaigns, financially supported by the , continued until 1984–1985 and were led by Claude Lemaître and Michel Batrel.

The preservation of the remains was supported by the city of Lisieux and the Calvados department. The painted remains were entrusted for study and restoration to the Centre d’étude des peintures murales romaines in Soissons. Researchers sorted approximately ten tons of rubble, resulting in the identification of nearly 25 painted plaster panels.

However, noted in 2008 that the excavation of the villa had never been published. Today, the site is a little-frequented public garden located right next to the hospital. The remaining walls of the dwelling have been reinforced, while low hedges mark the layout of various rooms in the baths. This discovery nonetheless represents the most important Gallo-Roman dwelling known in the city.

Location

The city of Noviomagus Lexoviorum is located 28 km from the sea. As the capital of the Gallic people known as the Lexovii, the original settlement was at a place called “Le Castellier,” 3 km southwest of the current city—an oppidum surrounded by a fortified enclosure of 200 hectares. Established on the current site of Lisieux, the Gallo-Roman city featured monumental architecture, including public buildings such as an amphitheater, temples, municipal buildings, and baths. The site is located within the ancient city, at the juncture between dense housing and the countryside, and on the eastern edge of the Gallo-Roman settlement. It is near the road leading to Mediolanum Aulercorum (modern Évreux) and Juliobona (modern Lillebonne).

The site was initially occupied by sparse housing in the early 1st century. The villa was built at the end of the 1st century, while the building that would become the bath complex was erected in the early 2nd century. At the site of the men’s baths, there was once metalworking activity, evidenced by the discovery of slag. Initially intended as a residence, this building had an original decorative scheme that is poorly understood due to major alterations related to its change in function.

A road 3.80 meters wide separated the baths and the villa. The site suggests that the city of the Lexovii followed an orthogonal plan at least from the Flavian period onward. The neighborhood was close to the decumanus maximus of the city and supplied by two semi-buried aqueducts. One of the aqueducts was older than the second but dated to a late period in the 2nd century; the water source was located near Glos, 9 km from Lisieux.

Private residence The building may have had an upper floor and around fifty rooms.

Only eight rooms, spared from the destruction of the late 1960s, were fully excavated during the 1978–1979 digs and are known. Four of them were connected by a hallway and four communicated directly with one another. The others, located near the construction site, were severely damaged. Three rooms in the villa revealed painted décor.

First group of rooms

This group included two kitchens with hearths, one of which had a floor made of compacted earth. The base of the oven was well preserved. The wall was coated with white plaster. The other kitchen had a hearth set on a substructure and possibly included a spit-turning mechanism.

The two other rooms, designed for receiving guests, featured richly decorated wall paintings. One of them, covering at least 8 m2, had a fish motif against a blue background, with two of the fish being particularly well preserved. The room had a constructed floor covered with limestone slabs.

The other room, heated by hypocaust and measuring 3.65 m by 2.50 m, had a wooden floor. Its vaulted ceiling was painted, covered with circular patterns featuring stylized rosettes in ochre red and dark green. The praefurnium, or heating system for the hypocaust, made of brick, is particularly well preserved.

Second group of rooms

One kitchen with a compacted earth floor was identified by the excavators in this group. During the digs, culinary waste, including oyster shells, mussels, and fish bones, was found.

A large room had a limestone floor, and its walls were painted bright red in the lower section. The upper part may have featured a frieze.

A small room with a hypocaust also featured painted décor of flowers and blind arcades on a white background. A fragment of sculpture depicting a marine animal's tail was found in this room.

Description of the bath complex The baths were originally a residential building, and the transformation prompts the excavator to propose two hypotheses: an act of evergetism (public generosity) toward the city or, more simply, the opening of a private installation.

Archaeologists identified a bath complex with one section for men and another for women, following the model of double baths, although this division reflects the final phase of construction. The rooms were arranged in a radial pattern rather than a linear succession, due to successive modifications. A total area of 1,300 m² was studied.

The bath complex opened onto a palaestra measuring 165 m², with a compacted earth floor. To the north was a portico and to the west, an aqueduct. The portico served to give a monumental appearance to the complex.

The baths were entirely painted. The study of the paintings enabled hypotheses regarding parts of the elevations, niches, and vaulted ceilings.

Women's baths

The layout of the women’s baths does not follow the classic frigidarium, caldarium, tepidarium scheme but is organized in a “circular arrangement around a small courtyard,” where trinket jewelry was discovered. These feminine items led the excavator to identify the purpose of the space. Six rooms revealed painted decoration. Fifteen rooms were identified, including a cold pool, a caldarium, a praefurnium, and above all, the most richly endowed room in terms of discoveries—a tepidarium.

Cold pool The cold pool had two levels. It was built in the location of a courtyard. Water was drained via a wooden channel. The limestone slabs have completely disappeared. The pool’s layout suggests a role in a dual circulation system. Another room, about 6 m², may have been a second pool, with its floor and walls covered in white and green marble.

Caldarium The caldarium, or hot bath, with a surface area of 19 m², is one of the best-preserved rooms. It featured a vaulted ceiling that retained the imprint of terracotta heating tubes (tubuli), many of which were found, either broken or intact, during the excavation. The floor still preserved parts of the raised floor system (suspensura) and white limestone slabs; green and purple marble fragments were also discovered there.

It had a painted decoration adorned with flowers and geometric motifs, as well as a veneer of green and purple marble. The exact arrangement of the décor is not well known, although Alix Barbet mentions small shrines, railings, and a niche. The geometric decoration on the vault has been reconstructed and revealed a rich color palette.

Præfurnium

The praefurnium or heating system was located at the northwest corner of the tepidarium and opened onto a service courtyard.

Tepidarium The tepidarium or warm bath, with a surface area of 60 m² or 80 m², was set up in a former frigidarium and equipped with hypocaust heating. The layout is dated to the first half of the 2nd century but was altered by the end of the century or the beginning of the 3rd century.

Half of the 130 pilettes (small supporting columns) were fairly well preserved, and the suspended floor (suspensura) was made of limestone slabs, some of which had collapsed. A bench contained channels for smoke evacuation, and due to the absence of wall flues, excavators identified the room as the warm room.

The paintings covered 300 m², of which 90 m² were recovered, reaching at least 4 meters in height.

Male baths This part of the building is poorly known, as it was destroyed as early as the medieval period. It too was adorned with wall paintings.

However, some elements were identified, including a suite of cold rooms of at least 80 m², a hot pool of 3.80 m², and two damaged hypocausts. In addition, excavators uncovered a hypocaust with 30 pilettes, in poor condition; however, decorative elements featuring geometric and vegetal motifs were found there.

Wall paintings

Villa paintings

Two fish, possibly mackerel, are shown head-to-tail and caught in nets. This fresco is preserved over an area of 2 meters by 0.60 meters. The painted decor with fish motifs on a blue background is treated in a unique style at Lisieux and represents a singular example in Gaul; it cannot be dated before the mid-1st century.

The corridor measured at least six meters in length. Its height was estimated at a minimum of four meters and was proportionate to the nearby bath buildings. The corridor floor was covered with parquet.

The walls of the corridor were painted “to imitate polychrome marble” (Florence Delacampagne) in the lower section, which was about two meters high, while the upper section featured “panels or garlands on a white background.” This white background served to brighten a poorly lit space.

The corridor featured a decor of stylized small columns linked by suspended knots.

The Soissons team was able to reconstruct four large panels measuring 1.25 meters and three smaller ones measuring fifty centimeters, for a total length of seven meters and a height of four meters. The painted decor, on a white background, used a palette of green, yellow-green, and brown, along with dark red and pink. According to Alix Barbet, this decor dates from the late 2nd to early 3rd century.

Tepidarium paintings from the women’s baths