A villa is a type of house that was originally an ancient Romanupper class country house. Since its origins in the Roman villa, the idea and function of a villa have evolved considerably. After the fall of the Roman Republic, villas became small farming compounds, which were increasingly fortified in Late Antiquity, sometimes transferred to the Church for reuse as a monastery. Then they gradually re-evolved through the Middle Ages into elegant upper-class country homes. In the early modern period, any comfortable detached house with a garden near a city or town was likely to be described as a villa; most survivals have now been engulfed by suburbia. In modern parlance, "villa" can refer to various types and sizes of residences, ranging from the suburbansemi-detached double villa to, in some countries, especially around the Mediterranean, residences of above average size in the countryside.
the villa urbana, a suburban or country seat that could easily be reached from Rome or another city for a night or two
the villa rustica, the farm-house estate that was permanently occupied by the servants who had charge generally of the estate, which would centre on the villa itself, perhaps only seasonally occupied. The Roman villae rusticae at the heart of latifundia were the earliest versions of what later and elsewhere became called manors and plantations.
In terms of design, there was often little difference in the main residence between these types at any particular level of size, but the presence or absence of farm outbuildings reflected the size and function of the estate.
Not included as villae were the domus, city houses for the élite and privileged classes, and the insulae, blocks of apartment buildings for the rest of the population. In Satyricon (1st century CE), Petronius described the wide range of Roman dwellings. Another type of villae is the "villa maritima", a seaside villa, located on the coast.
There was an important villa maritima in Barcola near Trieste. This villa was located directly on the coast and was divided into terraces in a representation area in which luxury and power was displayed, a separate living area, a garden, some facilities open to the sea and a thermal bath. Not far from this noble place, which was already popular with the Romans because of its favorable microclimate, one of the most important Villa Maritima of its time, the Miramare Castle, was built in the 19th century.[1]
Wealthy Romans also escaped the summer heat in the hills round Rome, especially around Tibur (Tivoli and Frascati), such as at Hadrian's Villa. Cicero allegedly possessed no fewer than seven villas, the oldest of which was near Arpinum, which he inherited. Pliny the Younger had three or four, of which the example near Laurentium is the best known from his descriptions.
Roman writers refer with satisfaction to the self-sufficiency of their latifundium villas, where they drank their own wine and pressed their own oil. This was an affectation of urban aristocrats playing at being old-fashioned virtuous Roman farmers, it has been said that the economic independence of later rural villas was a symptom of the increasing economic fragmentation of the Roman Empire.
In Roman Britannia
Archaeologists have meticulously examined numerous Roman villas in England. Like their Italian counterparts, they were complete working agrarian societies of fields and vineyards, perhaps even tileworks or quarries, ranged round a high-status power centre with its baths and gardens. The grand villa at Woodchester preserved its mosaic floors when the Anglo-Saxon parish church was built (not by chance) upon its site. Grave-diggers preparing for burials in the churchyard as late as the 18th century had to punch through the intact mosaic floors. The even more palatial villa rustica at Fishbourne near Winchester was built (uncharacteristically) as a large open rectangle, with porticos enclosing gardens entered through a portico. Towards the end of the 3rd century, Roman towns in Britain ceased to expand: like patricians near the centre of the empire, Roman Britons withdrew from the cities to their villas, which entered on a palatial building phase, a "golden age" of villa life. Villae rusticae are essential in the Empire's economy.
Two kinds of villa-plan in Roman Britain may be characteristic of Roman villas in general. The more usual plan extended wings of rooms all opening onto a linking portico, which might be extended at right angles, even to enclose a courtyard. The other kind featured an aisled central hall like a basilica, suggesting the villa owner's magisterial role. The villa buildings were often independent structures linked by their enclosed courtyards. Timber-framed construction, carefully fitted with mortises and tenons and dowelled together, set on stone footings, were the rule, replaced by stone buildings for the important ceremonial rooms. Traces of window glass have been found, as well as ironwork window grilles.
With the decline and collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the fourth and fifth centuries, the villas were more and more isolated and came to be protected by walls. In England the villas were abandoned, looted, and burned by Anglo-Saxon invaders in the fifth century, but the concept of an isolated, self-sufficient agrarian working community, housed close together, survived into Anglo-Saxon culture as the vill, with its inhabitants – if formally bound to the land – as villeins.
In regions on the Continent, aristocrats and territorial magnates donated large working villas and overgrown abandoned ones to individual monks; these might become the nuclei of monasteries. In this way, the Italian villa system of late Antiquity survived into the early Medieval period in the form of monasteries that withstood the disruptions of the Gothic War (535–554) and the Lombards. About 529 Benedict of Nursia established his influential monastery of Monte Cassino in the ruins of a villa at Subiaco that had belonged to Nero.
From the sixth to the eighth century, Gallo-Roman villas in the Merovingian royal fisc were repeatedly donated as sites for monasteries under royal patronage in Gaul – Saint-Maur-des-Fossés and Fleury Abbey provide examples. In Germany a famous example is Echternach; as late as 698, Willibrord established an abbey at a Roman villa of Echternach near Trier, presented to him by Irmina, daughter of Dagobert II, king of the Franks. Kintzheim was Villa Regis, the "villa of the king". Around 590, Saint Eligius was born in a highly placed Gallo-Roman family at the 'villa' of Chaptelat near Limoges, in Aquitaine (now France). The abbey at Stavelot was founded ca 650 on the domain of a former villa near Liège and the abbey of Vézelay had a similar founding.
In post-Roman times a villa referred to a self-sufficient, usually fortified Italian or Gallo-Roman farmstead. It was economically as self-sufficient as a village and its inhabitants, who might be legally tied to it as serfs were villeins. The MerovingianFranks inherited the concept, followed by the Carolingian French but the later French term was basti or bastide.
Villa/Vila (or its cognates) is part of many Spanish and Portuguese placenames, like Vila Real and Villadiego: a villa/vila is a town with a charter (fuero or foral) of lesser importance than a ciudad/cidade ("city"). When it is associated with a personal name, villa was probably used in the original sense of a country estate rather than a chartered town. Later evolution has made the Hispanic distinction between villas and ciudades a purely honorific one. Madrid is the Villa y Corte, the villa considered to be separate from the formerly mobile royal court, but the much smaller Ciudad Real was declared ciudad by the Spanish crown.
The Quattrocento villa gardens were treated as a fundamental and aesthetic link between a residential building and the outdoors, with views over a humanized agricultural landscape, at that time the only desirable aspect of nature. Later villas and gardens include the Palazzo Pitti and Boboli Gardens in Florence, and the Villa di Pratolino in Vaglia.
Rome
Rome had more than its share of villas with easy reach of the small sixteenth-century city: the progenitor, the first villa suburbana built since Antiquity, was the Belvedere or palazzetto, designed by Antonio del Pollaiuolo and built on the slope above the Vatican Palace.
The Villa Madama, the design of which, attributed to Raphael and carried out by Giulio Romano in 1520, was one of the most influential private houses ever built; elements derived from Villa Madama appeared in villas through the 19th century. Villa Albani was built near the Porta Salaria. Other are the Villa Borghese; the Villa Doria Pamphili (1650); the Villa Giulia of Pope Julius III (1550), designed by Vignola. The Roman villas Villa Ludovisi and Villa Montalto, were destroyed during the late nineteenth century in the wake of the real estate bubble that took place in Rome after the seat of government of a united Italy was established at Rome.
The Villas are grouped into an association (Associazione Ville Venete) and offer touristic itineraries and accommodation possibilities.
Villas elsewhere
17th century
Soon after in Greenwich England, following his 1613–1615 Grand Tour, Inigo Jones designed and built the Queen's House between 1615 and 1617 in an early Palladian architecture style adaptation in another country. The Palladian villa style renewed its influence in different countries and eras and remained influential for over four hundred years, with the Neo-Palladian a part of the late 17th century and on Renaissance Revival architecture period.
In the early 18th century the English took up the term, and applied it to compact houses in the country,[2] especially those accessible from London: Chiswick House is an example of such a "party villa". Thanks to the revival of interest in Palladio and Inigo Jones, soon Neo-Palladian villas dotted the valley of the River Thames and English countryside. Marble Hill House in England was conceived originally as a "villa" in the 18th-century sense.[3]
In the nineteenth century, the term villa was extended to describe any large suburban house that was free-standing in a landscaped plot of ground. By the time 'semi-detached villas' were being erected at the turn of the twentieth century, the term collapsed under its extension and overuse.
During the 19th and 20th century, the term "villa" became widespread for detached mansions in Europe. Special forms are for instance spa villas (Kurvillen in German) and seaside villas (Bädervillen in German), that became especially popular at the end of the 19th century. The tradition established back then continued throughout the 20th century and even until today.
Another trend was the erection of rather minimalist mansions in the Bauhaus style since the 1920s, that also continues until today.
In Denmark, Norway and Sweden "villa" denotes most forms of single-family detached homes, regardless of size and standard.
In Indonesia, the term "villa" is applied to Dutch colonial country houses (landhuis). Nowadays, the term is more popularly applied to vacation rental usually located in countryside area.
In Australia, "villas" or "villa units" are terms used to describe a type of townhouse complex which contains, possibly smaller attached or detached houses of up to 3–4 bedrooms that were built since the early 1980s.
In Cambodia, "villa" is used as a loanword in the local language of Khmer, and is generally used to describe any type of detached townhouse that features yard space. The term does not apply to any particular architectural style or size, the only features that distinguish a Khmer villa from another building are the yard space and being fully detached. The terms "twin-villa" and "mini-villa" have been coined meaning semi-detached and smaller versions respectively. Generally, these would be more luxurious and spacious houses than the more common row houses. The yard space would also typically feature some form of garden, trees or greenery. Generally, these would be properties in major cities, where there is more wealth and hence more luxurious houses.
^Sir John Summerson, Architecture in Britain, 1530 to 1830: ch. 22 "Palladian permeation: the villa" provides a standard overview of the building type.
^Klaus F. Müller: Park und Villa Haas – Historismus, Kunst und Lebensstil. Verlag Edition Winterwork, 2012, ISBN978-3-86468-160-8.
