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Roman Villas of Istria and Dalmatia, Part II: Typology of Villas
Vlasta Begović
Ivančica Schrunk
Sažetak
The origin of villas was analysed, first on the territory of Italy, and from the first century BC on also on the eastern Adriatic coast, as well as the development of villas of Roman Histria and Dalmatia. The development of villas was analysed in relation to 1. the economic processes that initiated their expansion; 2. the social and political circumstances; and 3. architectural shape (functionality, content and form). The villas were divided according to:
1. type of ownership - A/ soldier/small landowner; B/local socially and administratively highly-positioned individuals; C/ villas of the Roman aristocracy and senator’s families; D/ imperial villas
2. type of groundplan - A/ villas with an inner courtyard; B/ villas with a central corridor; C/ peristyle villas; D/ porticus villas; E/ luxury villas - combinations of C/ and D/.
3. location - A/ villa urbana; B/ villa suburbana; C/ villa rustica; D/ coastal villas; E/ maritime villas
4. chronology - A/ Early Empire villas; B/ villas of the second and third centuries; C/ Late Antique villas, including extroverted and introverted villas, as well as villas with a compact and dissected ground plan.
An example of villas owned by the Roman aristocracy and senatorial families are: Loron (in the first part of the first century), belonged to Sisenna Statilie Taur, later to Calvia Crispinilla; Brijuni, owned by the Laecani family; villa on the Sustjepan Peninsula near Cavtat, owned by Cornelius Dolabela. Famous imperial villas are: Loron; Verige Brijuni; Vižula Medulin; Diocletian’s Palace in Split, and an object built before the palace, Polače on the island of Mljet. Examples of excavated villas with an inner courtyard are: Labinci near Poreč; Šijana near Pula; Muline on the island of Ugljan. Examples of excavated villas with a central corridor are: Banjole near Pula; and a part of the villa in Barbariga. Examples of peristylar villas are: villas in Madona Bay and on the Kolci site on the Brijuni Islands; Sorna near Poreč with two peristyl and a triclinium with exedrae; Val Bandon north of Pula. Porticus villas are: Vižula near Medulin; on the island of Murter; and on the Sustjepan Peninsula near Cavtat. Villas representing a combination of the aforementioned types are: villa on the Katoro Peninsula; Barbariga; and Verige, Brijuni.
The maritime villa on the peninsula of Katoro (Ca d’oro - Domus Aurea) near Umag occupied the entire peninsula, and it shows a situation similar to the villa Sirmione on Lago di Garda. Aside from some complexes on the top of the peninsula and the large piscinae vivaria in the sea, the villa was not excavated. Near Poreč (antique Parentium) there is a maritime villa on the peninsula of Sorna, a large villa with a figuline in Loron and a villa with a brick kiln in Červar Porat. A particularly interesting area of the eastern Adriatic coast is the southern part of Istria. Along fertile fields and the seashore a set of significant Roman villas was built in the first century AD: Valbandon; Barbariga; Medulin (Vižula); Fažana; the Brijuni Islands (Verige and Madona bays). They seem to have been centers of property of interconnected landowners belonging to the same cultural and economic circle of Roman society. They probably created the large successful economy for a certain number of the imperators’ inner circle of relatives and friends in the period of the Julian-Claudian dynasty. The large antique villa in Barbariga from the Julian-Claudian period, excavated and described by H. Schwalb, has two separate complexes, whose porticos and peristyle are turned toward the sea, and whose long portico connects them with the quay. The Early Empire villa was of luxurious construction and it can be called a maritime villa. It is situated north of Fažana with a panoramic view of the Brijuni Islands. On the basis of the different orientation of the complexes, Schwalb supposed that a part of the villa was intended for summer and the other part for winter sojourns. Directly above Barbariga, in the vicinity of Betiga, on the position of the antique villae rusticae, an Old Christian complex was constructed, which developed around cellae trihorae (from the beginning of the fifth century) and was successively built up until the eleventh/twelfth century. The maritime villa in Val Bandon near Pula was built in a deep shallow bay, into which a stream flows, so that fresh and salt water mix. According to the remains, the inside of the bay, abundant in architectural complexes, was parted, so that the entire part made a large piscina vivarium (like Nečujam, Piškera Bay, the island of Šolta). The piscina vivarium received fresh water from openings toward the sea, and fresh water from the stream to reduce the salinity in the shallow bay. The villa was especially luxurious with semi-round rooms and pavement designed in opus scutulatum (colorful stones - alabaster, aragonite and marbles of different colors - were inserted into a black mosaic with a white rim). On the other side of the bay peristyles surrounded by rooms were found. The entire complex is situated just opposite of the Brijuni Islands, from which it is separated by the narrow Fažana Channel and a panoramic view toward the sea and the Brijuni. Among the villas of this area two on the Brijuni Islands are particularly interesting – in Madona and Verige bays. According to Tassaux, the villa in Verige, owned by the senatorial Laecanii family, is particularly luxurious and represented the center of a property, on which there was a set of smaller villas. In the second half of the first century AD it probably came under imperial ownership. In Late Antiquity, the courtyard of the large villa rustica in the bay of Madona was completed by contents suggesting a fullonica. Suić assumes that it was a Baphium cissense Venetiae et Histriae that in the late fourth century AD was published in Notitia Dignitatum (Occid. XI, 67, ed. Seeck). Near the villa from the first century BC, in the third and fourth centuries modest housing quarters were built, and the entire settlement was given a protective wall and controlled entrances (propugnaculum) in the course of the fifth and sixth centuries. Two villas - the one in Madona Bay and the other in Verige - represented a naval base in the fifth and sixth centuries and a starting point of the sailing route to Ravenna. The villa on the peninsula of Vižula near Medulin, stretching along the entire coastline of the peninsula over a length of approximately 900 m, although only partly excavated, suggests a luxurious maritime villa with porticos built on the shore (with pavement covered with black and white mosaics) and the rooms with pavement designed in opus scutulatum. The surveying of the complexes situated directly along the shore point to extraordinarily rich use of different kinds of marble.
In the territory of antique Pula a villa suburbana between the amphitheater and Hercules’ port was excavated. Also another villa suburbana in the territory of Narona on the site Erešove Bare, in which in the Late Antiquity an Old Christian church was built.
The Late Antique villa in Muline on the southern side of the island of Ugljan was built on the remains of a villa from the Early Empire period. It was built with a central, slightly elevated courtyard and a large cistern with mosaic pavement. On its premises there are plants for the extraction and production of olive oil. In Late Antiquity, to the east of the villa a number of buildings was constructed - a martyrion, later dissected by adding memorial cellae, basilicas with annexes and an arched mausoleum.
The villa on the island of Murter, of which only the porticus, the cistern and the thermae indicate a luxury villa with panoramic views. The finds on the beach point to a large luxury maritime villa in the bay of Stari Trogir. The villa was not excavated. In the territory of antique Salona, in the vicinity of Porta Cesarea, there was an important villa urbana with polychrome mosaics, better known as the Provincial Governor’s Palace. Another villa urbana was excavated in Stari Grad on the island of Hvar. Obviously at the site of Diocletian’s Palace there was a building from the earlier period of high-quality construction. Finds in the substructions of the Palace (in the south eastern corner) indicate a high level of artistic skill in the making of the architrave, impost, frieze, and tympanum. Fragments of a theater found on the same place and the find of an odeum on the Ad basilicas pictas site on the road to Salona suggest the existence of a maritime villa before Diocletian’s Palace. The unexcavated Late Antique villa in Rogač (Banje Bay) on the island of Šolta has a wall towards the bay open with large arches built in the opus mixtum technique. The villa in Nečujam on the island of Šolta (Piškera Bay) had a large fishpond that occupied the entire bottom of the bay. The bay was split by a massive wall (situation same as in Val Bandon near Pula) with an opening in the middle for the flow of fresh seawater. After the large fishpond (piscina vivarium) the bay was called Piškera. On the eastern end, in the Lovrečina Bay on the island of Brač, there are remains of an Early Roman villa with a dissected ground plan. The villa’s walls were built of very uniform stone blocks. In the middle of the bay, the remains of Late Antique walls were found. In Bol on Brač there are two antique villas - one on the site of the Dominican monastery, and the other on Zlatni Rat. There are Roman villas in Hvarsko Polje between Starigrad and Jelsa, as well as on the site Soline on the island of Hvar. The villa in Lumbarda on Korčula has walls built in opus reticulatum. It controls the navigation along the channel of Pelješac and is characterized as a villa maritima. On the island of Lastovo (antique Ladesta) in the port of Ubli there are remains of an antique villa from the first century AD, and on its premises an Old Christian church was built in the fifth/sixth century. The Late Antique palace in Polače on the island of Mljet was built directly next to the villa and the thermae from the Early Imperial period. The find of a secondarily used antique plate with an inscription suggests the existence of a Roman temple with a porch dedicated to the old Italic deity Liber - the patron of wine, fertility and fields. In the port Polače numerous undersea finds of wine amphorae and other ceramic and metal artifacts from the period from the first century BC up until Late Antiquity were discovered. In Late Antiquity the island was imperial property, and as such it was donated by the Ostrogoth leader Odoacer to Comes Pierius on March 13, 489, as a debt for a loan. Comes Domesticorum Pierius probably began the construction of the monumental palace in the bay of Polače as a country residential complex. The palace (praetorium) after which the port bears its present-day name has probably never been finished. The villa near Cavtat (antique Epidaurus) on the peninsula Sustjepan was built on the terraces on a slope along the shore. Finds of antique pottery and glass date the villa to the Early Empire period. In Late Antiquity the villa was rebuilt and there are finds of Late Antique graves near the villa. Grave finds are very significant - a golden earring decorated by sapphire and aquamarine and twelve bronze coins of Justinian (527-565). The villa near Cavtat in Tiha Bay, north of the port of Cavtat, where the inscription in the honour of the Regent of Dalmatia, Publius Cornelius Dolabela, and parts of his statue were found.
The aforementioned examples show that the architecture of the villas of Roman Histria and Dalmatia according to its scope and quality does not lag behind contemporary works in the territory of Italy. The largest obstacle to their classification is insufficient excavation, the neglect of stratigraphy and finds in older archaeological excavations, and insufficient publishing of the results of archaeological excavations, a very small number of completely excavated sites with defined ground plans and especially divided Early Empire and Late Antique stages. This survey is based on today’s research level and the accessible documentation, and it points to the extent of necessity of further archaeological research and presentation of the sites of Roman villas. In the third part - Roman villas of Istria and Dalmatia III, maritime villas shall be analysed, and in the fourth part a catalogue of villas shall be issued.
Ključne riječi
Roman villas; villa rustica; villa urbana; villa suburbana; maritime villa; Roman architecture; eastern Adriatic coast and islands; first century BC to sixth century AD
Hrčak ID:
795
URI
Datum izdavanja:
16.6.2003.
Posjeta: 12.223 *