The Roman Villa: PARS URBANA

The pars urbana is the residential area of the country villa, more specifically the part of the house reserved to the master (dominus) and his guests, looking luxurious, comfortable and majesticIn professor Andrea Carandini’s words : “The partes urbanae of the villae will incorporate the partes rusticae to such an extent as to appear as a concentration of luxuria, small realms in the countryside”

The pars urbana:was built on the top of a basement (basis villae), hiding storehouses for goods and the cryptoporticus

CRYPTOPORTICUS: a covered portico generally underground, like the support of an embankment, which in the roman villa was used as a passage way, cool in the summer and warm in the winter.

According also to the description of ancient writers (Cato, Varro, Pliny ecc), we can deduce that the most important parts were the following:1. Vestibulum: the hallway and fauces: the proper entrance.

2. Atrium: Open space or inside courtyard, where the dominus’ guests were generally welcomed ; it also represented the main source of lighting in the house.

The walls of the atrium were painted, as were also the other interiors, and everywhere there were frames with figures:

The subjects were often mythological, or small landscapes, or geometrical patterns with bright colors:blue, red and ochre yellow.

3. Lararium: an aedicule where they kept the statues of the Lares and the Penates, protectors of the home and family, and the Mani for the veneration of departed souls.

a. Model recreationb. Lararium of the villa in Pompei

c. Lararium in Herculaneum