Editing Roman villa (section)

==Social history==
[[File:Lazio Tivoli2 tango7174.jpg|thumb|300px|Maritime theatre, [[Hadrian's Villa]], [[Tivoli, Lazio|Tivoli]]]]

The late Roman Republic witnessed an explosion of villa construction in central Italy (current regions of Toscana, Umbria, Lazio, and Campania), especially in the years following the dictatorship of [[Sulla]] (81 BC).<ref>
Van Oyen, A. (2020). The Socio-Economics of Roman Storage: Agriculture, Trade, and Family (pp. 197–228). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/9781108850216.010</ref>

For example the villa at [[Settefinestre]] from the 1st century BC was the centre of one of the ''[[latifundia]]'' involved in large-scale agricultural production in [[Etruria]].<ref>Andrea Carandini, M. Rossella Filippi, Settefinestre: una villa schiavistica nell'Etruria romana, 1985, Panini</ref>

In the imperial period villas sometimes became quite palatial, such as the villas built on seaside slopes overlooking the Gulf of Naples at [[Baiae]] and those at [[Stabiae]] and the [[Villa of the Papyri]] and its library at [[Herculaneum]] preserved by the ashfall from the eruption of [[Mount Vesuvius]] in 79. 

Areas within easy reach of Rome offered cool lodgings in the heat of summer. [[Hadrian's Villa]] at Tibur ([[Tivoli, Lazio|Tivoli]]) was in an area popular with Romans of rank. [[Cicero]] had several villas. [[Pliny the Younger]] described his villas in his letters. The Romans invented the seaside villa: a vignette in a frescoed wall at the [[House of Marcus Lucretius Fronto]]<ref>{{cite web | url=http://pompeiisites.org/en/archaeological-site/house-of-marco-lucretius-frontone/ | title=House of Marco Lucretius Frontone }}</ref> in Pompeii still shows a row of seafront villas, all with porticos along the front, some rising up in porticoed tiers to an ''altana'' at the top that would catch a breeze.<ref>Veyne 1987 ill. p 152</ref>

Villas were centres of a variety of economic activity such as mining, pottery factories, or horse raising such as those found in [[Roman villas in northwestern Gaul|northwestern Gaul]].<ref>{{cite book|last= Dyson|first=Stephen L.|title= The Roman Countryside|year= 2003|publisher= Gerald Duckworth and Company|location=London|isbn= 0-7156-3225-6|pages=49–53}}</ref>  Villas specialising in the seagoing export of [[olive oil]] to [[Roman legion]]s in Germany became a feature of the southern Iberian province of [[Hispania Baetica]].<ref>Numerous stamped [[amphora]]e, identifiable as from Baetica, have been found in Roman sites of northern Gaul.</ref>

[[Image:Hypocaustum Villa Romana La Olmeda 020 Pedrosa De La Vega - Saldaña (Palencia).JPG|thumb|Villas had luxuries like [[hypocaust]]-heated rooms with mosaics (La Olmeda, Spain)]]

In some cases villas survived the fall of the Empire into the [[Early Middle Ages]]; large working villas were donated by aristocrats and territorial magnates to individual monks, often to become the nucleus of famous [[monastery|monasteries]]. For example, [[Saint Benedict]] established a monastery in the ruins of a villa at [[Subiaco, Lazio|Subiaco]] that had belonged to [[Nero]].{{cn|date=August 2023}} Around 590, [[Saint Eligius]] was born in a highly placed Gallo-Roman family at the 'villa' of Chaptelat near [[Limoges]], in [[Aquitaine]].{{cn|date=August 2023}} The abbey at [[Stavelot]] was founded ca 650 on the domain of a former villa near [[Liège]] and [[Vézelay Abbey]] had a similar founding.{{cn|date=August 2023}} As late as 698, [[Willibrord]] established [[Abbey of Echternach|Echternach Abbey]] at a Roman villa near the city of [[Trier]] which [[Irmina of Oeren]], daughter of [[Dagobert II]], king of the [[Franks]], presented to him.{{cn|date=August 2023}}