Ussana

At Ussana, the church of San Lorenzo is built into a Roman thermal complex, a palimpsest of stone and brick where one civilisation’s leisure became another’s worship. The original bathhouse, constructed mostly in brickwork (opera laterizia), was arranged around a central east-west hall, the tepidarium, which the medieval church later occupied, reusing its west end.

To the south, two rooms served as calidaria (hot baths), their floors still raised on brick suspensurae pillars, with the mouths of praefurnia (furnaces) and an apsed pool surviving. A third, northern hot room retains its hypocaust. North of the central hall lie two plaster-lined cold pools from the frigidarium, with steps for entry. A small quadrangular chamber to the south, probably the laconicum (sweat room), also has suspensurae. Northeast, drainage channels channelled water away. The church, built in the medieval period, partly reused and obscured these Roman structures, leaving a curious hybrid: a place of prayer standing on the bones of a bath.

Description via source. Coordinates and heritage data from the Atika atlas.