Architecture Photo: Resort Village

Villa

A villa was originally an ancient Roman upper-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 modern parlance 'villa' can refer to a various types and sizes of residences, ranging from the suburban "semi-detached" double villa to residences in the wildland-urban interface.

In ancient Roman architecture a villa was originally a country house built for the elite. According to Pliny the Elder, writing in the first century CE, there were several kinds of villas: the villa urbana, which was a country seat that could easily be reached from Rome or another city for a night or two, and 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 plantations. Not included as villae were the domus, a city house for the elite and privileged classes; and insulae, blocks of apartment buildings for the rest of the population. In Satyricon Petronius described the wide range of Roman dwellings.

(Source: Wikipedia.org)

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