Traces of a legendary treasure trove left by the infamous Roman Emperor Nero have been found at this northern Italian city.
Half a million artefacts have emerged in a three-year dig at a patrician villa that appeared during the construction of a multi-storey car park.
Among these, a handful of precious fragments are believed to have come from the fabulous array of riches the emperor assembled from all over the empire before his death in 68 AD.
According to Roman historians, Nero's treasure was lost when his successor Vespasian wiped out all traces of the unpopular emperor in Rome - covering his fabled Golden House in rubbish and building the Colosseum in its grounds.
But there has been repeated speculation that parts of the magnificent trove were smuggled out of Rome during a civil war in the Year of the Four Emperors (Galba, Otho, Vitellius and Vespasian) in 69 AD.
According to Lombardy's archaeological superintendent, Lynn Passi Pitcher, "Otho probably snatched precious objects from the Domus Aurea - objects which then came into the possession of Vitellius after his victory over Otho and the sack of Cremona".
"They somehow ended up here in the house of this affluent Cremona patrician," she said.
