In the last decades the area at “San Basilio” has allowed to recover a relevant amount of archaeological artefacts from the early settlements in this territory. The artefacts date back to the archaic times (VI-V century B.C.), when this territory was frequented by Etruscans, Greeks and people of the Veneto culture and when it was a flourishing trades centre in the whole east-central Mediterranean and in Etruria. In Roman times (II century B.C.) the construction of an important consular road, the “via Popillia”, which started in Rimini and headed up to Adria, brought a new vitality in this territory. The so-called “mansio Hadriani” was built here, a staging post that has been largely documented through the excavations in the Eighties and whose remains are exhibited today at the Centre “Centro Turistico Culturale San Basilio”. At the end of the Roman Empire this place became one of the most ancient centres for Christian religion in the province of Rovigo, as it has been discovered through the most recent excavations. The remains which are conserved today in the archaeological area of San Basilio belong to this religious centre, and particularly include a necropolis with “cappuccina” tombs (or “tile tent” tombs, covered with overlapping tiles forming a tent-like structure) and the early Christian compound with octagonal baptistery.