VILLA
VILLA a farm or country-house. The Roman writers mention two
kinds of villa,--the
villa rustica or
farm-house, and the
villa urbana or
pseudo-urbana, a residence in the country or in the
suburbs of a town. When both of these were attached to an estate, they were
generally united in the same range of buildings, but sometimes they were
placed at different parts of the estate. The part of the
villa rustica in which the produce of the farm was kept, is
distinguished by Columella by a separate name,
villa
fructuaria.
1. The
villa rustica is described by Varro
(
R. R. 1.11-13), Vitruvius (
6.9), and Columella (1.4.5 f.).
The villa, which must be of size corresponding to that of the farm, is best
placed at the foot of a wooded mountain, in a spot supplied with running
water, and not exposed to severe winds nor to the effluvia of marshes, nor
(by being close to a public road) to a too frequent influx of visitors. If
there was no running stream, it was accounted of great importance that tanks
should be constructed, one under cover for men, one in the open air for the
beasts. The villa attached to a large farm had two courts (
cohortes, chortes, cortes, Varro, 1.13). At the
entrance to the outer court was the abode of the
vilicus, that he might observe who went in and out, and over the
door was the room of the
procurator (Varro,
l.c.;
Col. 1.6). Near this, in as warm a spot as
possible, was the kitchen, which, besides being used for the preparation of
food, was the place where the slaves (
familiae）
assembled after the labours of the day, and where they performed certain
indoor work. Vitruvius places near the kitchen the baths and the press
(
torcular) for wine and oil, but the
latter, according to Columella, though it requires the warmth of the sun,
should not be exposed to artificial heat. In the outer court were also the
cellars for wine and oil (
cellae vinariae et
oleariae), which were placed on the level ground, and the
granaries, which were in the upper stories of the farm-buildings, and
carefully protected from damp, heat, and insects. These store-rooms form the
separate
villa fructuaria of Columella; Varro
places them in the
villa rustica, but Vitruvius
recommends that all produce which could be injured by fire should be stored
without the villa.
In both courts were the chambers (
cellae) of the
slaves, fronting the south; but the
ergastulum
for those who were kept in chains (
vincti) was
underground, being lighted by several high and narrow windows.
The inner court was occupied chiefly by the horses, cattle, and other live
stock, and here were the stables and stalls (
bubilia,
equilia, ovilia).
A reservoir of water was made in the middle of each court, that in the outer
court for soaking pulse and other vegetable produce, and that in the inner,
which was supplied with fresh water by a spring, for the use of the cattle
and poultry.
2. The
villa urbana or
pseudo-urbana was so called because its interior arrangements
corresponded for the most part to those of a townhouse. [Domus.] Vitruvius
(
6.8) merely states that the description of
the latter will apply to the former also, except that in the town the atrium
is placed close to the door, but in the country the peristyle comes first,
and afterwards the atrium, surrounded by paved porticoes, looking upon the
palaestra and ambulatio.
A striking difference in the general aspect of a country-house from that of a
town-house lay in the fact that the blank walls of the latter were replaced
by long colonnades, broken by towers, apses, and the like. Cf. the view of a
villa near the sea given in a painting from Pompeii by Guhl and Koner, fig.
393.
Our chief sources of information on this subject are two letters of Pliny, in
one of which (2.17) lie describes his Laurentine villa, in the other (5.6)
his Tuscan. The former of these, however, was not, strictly speaking, a
villa, as it had no estate or
farm-buildings attached to it: the latter was connected with a large estate.
There are also a few allusions in one of Cicero's letters (
ad
Quint. 3.1), and, as a most important illustration of these
descriptions, the remains of a suburban villa at Pompeii, of which a view
and a plan are given by Overbeck,
Pompeii, p.
325
ff.: cf. Guhl and Koner, fig. 392.
The Tuscan villa was approached by an avenue of plane-trees leading to a
colonnade, in front of which was a
xystus
divided into flower-beds by borders of box. This xystus formed a terrace,
from which a grassy slope, ornamented with boxtrees cut into the figures of
animals, and forming two lines opposite to one another, descended till it
was lost in the plain, which was covered with acanthus (
Plin. Nat. 5.6). Next to the portico was an
atrium, smaller and plainer than the corresponding apartment in a
town-house. In this respect Pliny's description is at variance with the rule
of Vitruvius; and the villa at Pompeii has also no atrium. It would appear
from Cicero (
l.c.) that both arrangements were
common. Next to the atrium in Pliny's Laurentine villa was a small
semicircular peristyle (
porticus in D literae similitudinem
circumactae, where, however, the reading O is also given instead
of D). The intervals between the columns of this peristyle were closed with
talc windows (
specularibus; see
DOMUS Vol. I. p. 686), and the
roof projected considerably, so that it formed an excellent retreat in
unfavourable weather. The open space in the centre of this peristyle seems
often to have been covered with moss and ornamented with a fountain.
Opposite to the middle of this peristyle was a pleasant
cavaedium, and beyond it an elegant triclinium, standing out from
the other buildings, with windows or glazed doors in the front and sides,
which thus commanded a view of the grounds and of the surrounding country,
while behind there was an uninterrupted view through the cavaedium,
peristyle, atrium, and portico into the xystus and the open country beyond.
The details of the other chambers are less clear; and though in Castell's
Villas of the Ancients there are numerous plans
illustrating them, much is based upon mere conjecture (cf. Schinkel in the
Architekturalbum, Part 7,
[p. 2.957]Berlin, 1862). There is mention of several chambers, a room with an apse,
serving as a library, and servants' rooms; while the other wing is occupied
with dining-rooms, baths, a tower, at the base of which are two
sittingrooms, a dining-hall, and another tower with store-rooms. Pliny
further describes with much satisfaction the colonnade (
cryptoporticus) which runs round the garden, and other
embellishments.
In the villa at Pompeii the arrangement is somewhat different, and
corresponds in its main features with the rules laid down by Vitruvius. The
entrance is in the Street of the Tombs. The portico leads through a small
three-cornered space, due to the fact that the building does not stand
square with the road, into a large square peristyle paved with
opus signinum, and having an impluvium in the centre
of its uncovered area. Round this are various bed-rooms and other small
chambers, and a set of bath-rooms. Beyond it is an open hall, resembling in
form and position the
tablinum in a town-house.
Next is a long gallery extending almost across the whole width of the house,
and beyond it is a large cyzicene oecus, corresponding to the large
triclinium in Pliny's villa. This room looks out upon a spacious court,
which was no doubt a xystus or garden, and which is surrounded on all sides
by a colonnade composed of square pillars, the top of which forms a terrace.
In the farthest side of this court is a gate leading out to the open
country. As the ground slopes downward considerably from the front to the
back of the villa, the terrace just spoken of is on a level with the
cyzicene oecus, the windows of which opened upon it; and beneath the oecus
itself is a range of apartments on the level of the large court, which were
probably used in summer, on account of their coolness.
The other rooms were so arranged as to take advantage of the different
seasons and of the surrounding scenery. (For the importance attached to a
fine view, cf. Friedländer,
Sittengeschichte Roms,
ii.6 p. 200.) Of these, however, there is only one
which requires particular notice; namely, a state bed-chamber, projecting
from the peristyle in an elliptic or semicircular form, so as to admit the
sun during its whole course. This apartment is mentioned by Pliny, and is
also found in the Pompeian villa. Pliny's Laurentine villa its wall was
fitted up as a library.
The villa contained a set of baths, the general arrangement of which was
similar to that of the public baths. [
BALNEAE]
Attached to it were a garden,
ambulatio, gestatio,
hippodromus, sphaeristerium, and in short all necessary
arrangements for enjoying different kinds of exercise. [CHORTUS; GYMNASIUM.]
Becker-Göll's
Gallus, vol. iii. pp.
46-63; Schneider's notes on Columella and Varro, and Gierig's on Pliny,
contain many useful remarks. The remains of the Roman villas in England have
been discussed (with plans) by Mr. Neville in the
Archaeological
Journal, vols. ii. vi. vii. x. For Pliny's Laurentine villa, cf.
Cowan's edition of Pliny, i.-ii. (with a plan), Burn's
Rome and the
Campagna, pp. 411-415 (with a plan), and especially Prof.
Aitchison's lecture (with plans) in
The Builder for Feb. 8,
1890.
[
P.S] [
A.S.W]
