Villa
A large country home built for wealthy Romans
Villa (plural villae) is a Latin term referring to a large estate, typically in the countryside, that would have been owned by the wealthy elite as a get-away home or sometimes primary residence. Like domus, villae did not conform to a specific layout, but there were main features that would typically be present in a villa. Villae, like domus, were often centered around an atrium at the front of the house - a large square greeting room where visitors would wait to be greeted by the homeowner, and valuable items could be stored and displayed (Becker, n.d.). Wealthy Romans would decorate their atria lavishly as a show of status to others. This could include valuable items, artwork, statues and shrines to family members or gods, and other examples of their familial or individual status. Atria also typically included a water collecting system in which the impluvium (a small square pool in the floor) collected water from the compluvium (a square hole in the ceiling which water, air, and light could come through). Villae extended from the atrium in varying ways depending on the period and their owners needs, but they would often include multiple rooms for dining and entertaining, kitchens, rooms with lavish decorations, and sometimes their own bathing facilities, or balneae. Villae would also have a back portion of the structure centered around a large peristylium (peristyle, square open courtyard surrounded by colonnade walkways), as well as a hortus (garden). Horti often contained both edible and decorative plants, and some villae had even more extensive food production capabilities. Early Republic villae tended to be smaller and more involved with food production, but Imperial era villae could be enormous estates (Becker, n.d.).
Bibliography
Latin Dictionary Entry
Villa - Perseus Digital Library
Jay Brodzeller, 2022