The discovery of the Po Valley had for Rome the same importance that the discovery of America later had for Europe. It was the opening of a new horizon and the starting point of a rapid economic growth, which was the solid foundation of the hegemony of Rome in the Venetia et Histria and in Europe. The book lists 576 sites of villas and starting from their decoration, features and industrial plants, such as torcularia, reconstructs the economic history of that part of Italy in roman times. At the center of the roman economic system - which was consistently exported in the Mediterranean world and in the northern Provinces - were the Villas, their products, the centuriation and the main cities; then came the road network, the navigable rivers, the fluvial and sea harbours, which enabled all sorts of commerce. The history of the roman hegemony in Venetia et Histria started in the III century B.C., with the epic times of the first roman colonies; then came the 'golden' augustan times with their economic boom, and finally the difficult years of the 'decline and fall' of the Roman Empire. This book uncovers new perspectives on the III-IV centuries, the villas and their economy in late antiquity.
Link: www.lerma.it

A brief preliminary presentation on mosaic pavements found during the excavations of an early imperial roman villa.

This book lists 100 villas in the territory surrounding Rome, choosing the best preserved ones, in order to study their plans and to devise their tipology. Most of the excavations are decades or centuries old, and it is often difficult to have access to the archives and to gather new data. Each villa has its own catalogue entry, listing building techniques, decoration, thermal plants, waterworks, industrial plants such as torcularia or furnaces, finds, and a discussion on the building and its meaning.
This consistent data-base enables us to understand many things about the way the villas were built and functioned. Most of all, it becomes self-evident that the so called otium villas, entirely devoted to luxury, meditation and rest, were very few, circumscribed to great monumental estates such as the Villa dei Quintili on the Appian way. The other villas - the vast majority of the group - always had a residential part tightly connected with a productive part, housing torcularia, furnaces, and other productive devices. This means that the villas were mainly devoted to the production of goods, which were sold on the markets of Rome: wine, cheese, fresh fruit and vegetables, and other goods such as wool or tools. The book gives a new contribution to the question of the slave economy and slave labour, and also shows that the villas were still rich and active well beyond the II-III centuries, which for a long time have been considered the deadline of the villa economic system in central Italy.
Link: www.lerma.it

The presentation showed how Villa Hadriana is an example of continuatio, being the ideal heir of legendary persian and hellenistic dynastic palaces, of which nothing is left. Continuatio lies also in the persistence of traditional elements, derived from traditional roman architecture (atrium, basis villae, nymphaea, grotto) and decoration (mosaics). But together with continuatio came renovatio: tradition was a starting point from which innovations were made, as far as architecture was concerned, creating new multi-shaped domes and halls. Mosaic and opus sectile decoration stemmed out from the traditional republican repertoire, but old patterns and drawings were re-invented and renewed with endless fantasy. Continuatio and renovatio are also visible in the impact that Villa Adriana had on Renaissance, Baroque and modern architecture.