The palace Fruscione is located in the oldest part of the historic center of Salerno, near the ancient Roman road of Channels of Salerno.
The building, begun in the thirteenth century, is based partly on the ruins of a thermal complex of imperial era, and is located near the ancient arechiana court. Its owner was probably the Salernitan doctor Giovanni da Procida.
Its location in the past led to hypothesize the misidentification with the residence of the Duke Arechi II. That view was unfounded because the Chronicon Salernitanum situates the palace chapel of San Pietro a Corte in the north of the palace of Arechi: Fruscione palace, instead, is in the north of the said church.
Someone believed the palace arechiana, others just a fine building of the Middle Ages and still others a remake of Swabian Age of the Palace of Arechi II. Dates back to 1738 a notarial document that describes the building, when it was ceded in perpetual lease to Bartolomeo Longo by the Cathedral Chapter, to which he had bequeathed in Canon Francesco Inglese. It demonstrates that the building was not headquarters of civil rooms but a "residence" and this explains the many stalls on the ground floor.
During the restoration of the '10s of the XXI century have been found traces of masonry that refer to a thermal complex of imperial times, the mosaics and frescoes of the second century. The environment with the mosaic, whose walls are covered with relief decoration of stucco and paintings, belonged to the Roman baths built between the first and second centuries AD, identified in the grounds of the palace placed in the south of the palace Fruscione. Traces of three following restorations of the mosaic make understand that the baths were popular until the mid-fifth century. Within the excavation were found two tombs that returned the human remains of two adult males aged between 30 and 40 years.
