Structural remains and ceramics of Roman and medieval date came to light in Brindisi’s historic centre during restructuring work on a ground floor apartment in Via Lauro 32, to the rear of the medieval church of S. Giovanni al Sepolcro.

The Archaeological Superintendency carried out a rescue excavation, opening three trenches across the room in order to check the nature of the archaeological structures.

The earliest remains were part of a road and a Greek-style opus quadratum wall built of large tufa blocks, part of a Roman insula. The wall delimited the south-east side of a space in front of the fauces of a domus that extended beyond the north wall of the modern building, continuing below the medieval church of S. Giovanni al Sepolcro.

To the south, the wall faced onto a cardo that was part of the ancient street network. Part of the paved road surface was uncovered, about one third of its original width. It was bordered by a kerb of tufa blocks with an opus signinum surface.

An occupation phase subsequent to the construction of the insula was documented in trenches 1 and 3 by a sequence of levelling layers, which raised the level of the road surface.

Trench 3 revealed evidence of medieval occupation in the form of a wall built on top of the layers obliterating the domus and medieval pottery was found in trench 2, whose fill produced mainly majolica and glazed wares.