Review of Becker, J. A., and N. Terrenato (eds), Roman Republican Villas: Architecture, Context, and Ideology (Ann Arbor 2012), JRS 104 (2014) 249. (original) (raw)
The Loggia: Renaissance Revival of Ancient Roman Villa Ideology as Manifest in a Liminal Space
2016
of the ancient architectural form. 4 These patrons and architects, inspired by their studies, invented the villa loggia, a liminal space, which this paper argues evolves into an emblem of Renaissance suburban villa life. The ancient villa did not often have a loggia, but with this innovation, the Renaissance patron and architect created a perfect formal embodiment of villa life. The villa and loggia are neither fully rural nor urban, instead existing in both city and country as public and private sphere. The suburban villa is a conglomeration of city and country life, where reality and fantasy meet, and the loggia, which incorporates interior and exterior, manifests the dichotomy of a country estate, near the city and often used business and leisure. 5 Villas from antiquity forward have incorporated elements of nature into their design, whether on a grand scale like that of Hadrian's villa estate at Tivoli or in a lesser fashion as an enclosed space behind the residence. 6 These ancient landscapes, however, were largely unknown in the Renaissance. While Vitruvius focused only on villa architecture, other ancient texts instructed the Renaissance patron and artists on nature. Roman architecture's tabernae provides a similarity to the Renaissance loggias used for negotium; the space is a single-room inlaid shop, covered by a barrel vault. 7 In his letters, Pliny the Younger writes of the Ancient Roman desire to escape to a country retreat, both 4 Ancient texts like Vitruvius were studied and inspired a great portion of medieval and renaissance architecture, including the villa. Interpretations of Vitruvius' architectural treatise were implemented into public and private building. It was not until later, when excavation of Ancient Roman dwellings began, that Vitruvius' words materialized into spaces.
The exhibition Ville del Rinascimento Padano: I Bastioni, Il Portico e la Fattoria, curated by Alberto Faliva, presents eight little known 16 th century villas located in the valley of the Po River in Italy. Influenced by the layouts of villas found in unpublished architectural treatises and drawings, the designs are unusual in presenting what Faliva describes as "eccentric architectural works." 1 Situated in open countryside and commanding views of the surrounding landscape, the villas have a number of common, or similar, features such as surrounding moats and a central block or enclosure with corner towers or habitable avant-corps. These features are characteristic, as Faliva has noted, of such layouts as the quincunx designs developed in the 15 th century by Leonardo da Vinci, Francesco di Giorgio and others, all of whom were noted for their interest in fortifications. 2
Villa or sanctuary? The so-called villa of Clodius at the Via Appia
Analecta Instituti Danici (ARID) 45/2020, 2022
Within the framework of a recently established Danish-Italian research project, “Contextualising the past in the Alban Hills”, it has been possible to undertake investigations of the Roman archaeological remains preserved inside Villa Santa Caterina, Castel Gandolfo, at the 13th mile on the Via Appia. The last scholar to study this complex was G. Lugli in 1914, and it has ever since been interpreted as a Roman villa, sometimes called the Villa of Clodius. This article reassesses this interpretation in light of the ongoing investigations and argues that the building on the site should rather be interpreted as the sacrarium/sacellum of the goddess Bona Dea known from literary sources.
I f by the word villa 1 we mean a building standing isolated in the countryside that was involved in slave-run agriculture and possessed a speci‹c area intended to house, though irregularly, a dominus, then such a structure and the related lifestyle have a de‹nite terminus post quem-namely, the year 367/366 BC, when the two great Licinio-Sextian laws were passed, the de consule plebeio and, above all, the de modo agrorum. The development in Rome of a type of slavery similar to the contemporary Greek one depends entirely on these two measures. As a matter of fact, the ‹rst law assured a gradual composition of the dramatic con›ict between plebeians and patricians and a reorganization of the agrarian economy, while the other bill put an end to the exclusive patrician control of the ager publicus. 2 These were all basic conditions that ushered in a more pro‹table exploitation of the land through slave labor.
Post-Classical Archaeologies (PCA) is an independent, international, peer-reviewed journal devoted to the communication of post-classical research. PCA publishes a variety of manuscript types, including original research, discussions and review articles. Topics of interest include all subjects that relate to the science and practice of archaeology, particularly multidisciplinary research which use specialist methodologies, such as zooarchaeology, paleobotany, archaeometallurgy, archaeometry, spatial analysis, as well as other experimental methodologies applied to the archaeology of post-classical Europe. Submission of a manuscript implies that the work has not been published before, that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere and that it has been approved by all co-authors. Authors must clear reproduction rights for any photos or illustration, credited to a third party that they wishe to use (including content found on the Internet). For more information about ethics (including plagiarism), copyright practices and guidelines please visit the website www.postclassical.it. PCA is published once a year in May. Manuscripts should be submitted to
2012
The archaeology of Roman villas and more generally of Roman rural landscapes has enjoyed widespread interest for some generations now, among both scholars and a wider audience. Some educational presentations of villa sites have even emerged as regular public attractions, as we have seen in the past decade with the villas of Borg in the Trier area, Ahrweiler near Bonn and Jemelle-Malagne in the Belgian Ardennes. 1 Despite marked differences in the way they present the Roman past, they all have in common their ability to appeal to the general public, each attracting about 50,000 visitors a year. Why do Roman villas hold such a fascination for people? There are probably different factors at work here. Villas are regarded as the most 'Roman' component of the rural landscapes of that time. Through their fascinating archaeological remains (pavements with mosaics, houses with stone foundations, tiled roofs, painted walls, hypocausts, bathing facilities, etc.), they stimulate public imagination about the Roman past. Roman villas evoke a feeling of familiarity through their associations with modern ideals of civilisation and strategies of elite distinction in terms of comfortable living and an appreciation of a rustic life in the country. In our modern post-industrial society, the arcadian 'Traum vom Lande' also has broad appeal, as we see in the escape from the city and the building of modern villas. In that sense, villas fit within the modern quest for an idealised past. At the same time, villa attractions help us put modern Western civilisation into perspective through our awareness of the decline of the Roman empire. Underpinning this volume is archaeological research into villas and villa landscapes in the northern provinces of the Roman empire. In 2006 the Archaeological Centre at VU University Amsterdam launched the research programme Villa landscapes in the Roman North. Economy, culture, lifestyles. Funded by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO), it is scheduled for completion in 2011. Included in the planned output for the programme is this synthesis volume of articles by project members, supplemented by contributions from other archaeologists working in the field of Roman rural archaeology. The aim of this book, which builds on an international symposium organised in Vaals (NL) in November 2008, is fourfold: a. to develop a synthesis on the emergence and development of Roman villa landscapes in the northern provinces. b. to formulate a cohesive body of theoretical concepts and ideas about the social, economic and cultural functioning of villas within the context of the Roman empire. c. to contribute to comparative research into villa landscapes and the phenomenon of regionality of Roman rural landscapes. d. to bring about methodological innovation by devising a classification of villa development trajectories, and to apply new geographical and cartographical techniques (including GIS) in the analysis of villa landscapes. The source material used in this book is primarily of an archaeological nature. Our aim first and foremost is to incorporate in the analyses the explosive growth in archaeological information in recent decades, including that from 'grey literature', and to render it productive for broader discussions. But we also seek to use historical and epigraphic data to arrive at a more balanced picture. This volume is simply organised. We start with an extensive introductory paper setting out the parameters for the study of Roman villa landscapes using a series of themes. This is followed by 16 articles with a thematic or regional focus that give added depth to the discussions raised here. They include two contributions which present concrete case studies of recently excavated villa sites.