Urbs in Rure: Decorative Programmes and Architectural Models in Lusitania’s Villae

Abstract

One of the most remarkable characteristics in Lusitania’s villae is their diversity: Each place embodies a set of contents and symbols, which were carefully defined by their owners. By analysing all the different architectural and iconographic variants, we are trying to understand who these domini were and how the elites conveyed all contents belonging to the bigger picture of the Mediterranean Oikoumene. Landscape, building spaces and plants, the relation between inner and outer environments, iconographic contents, and decorative grammar are analysed in order to be able to understand the way in which the cultural values found in Lusitania’s villae were transmitted.