Dalle ville aristocratiche alle aristocrazie delle ville

Some important new excavations and the increasing number of studies on Late Roman housing and economic systems have allowed to acquire interesting data on the  lites. In particular, the villas appear as privileged contexts for the study of the social, cultural and economic identity of this aristocracy. However, a topic that has rarely been addressed is the identity of the owners, or rather, of the gens who owned these villas. For some sites, thanks to new researches, is now plausible to propose their identification with members of the Senate: the villa dell’Oratorio (FI), referable to the Vetti family; the villa of San Vincenzino (LI), probably built by the Cecina family; the villa of Cazzanello (Tarquinia, VT), attributed to the gens Petronia and the villa of Faragola, in Apulia, probably belonging to several exponents of important senatorial families (Grecidi, Corneli Scipioni Orfiti; Aurelia Flavia Archelais). We also considered the villa of Gerace, in Sicily, belonging to Philippianus, perhaps a local aristocrat. Starting from these contexts, we tried to re-read the Late Antique villas considering the profile of the proprietary gens, although we are aware that it is not an easy attempt, and also quite insidious, but potentially useful to try to refine the interpretations of these monumental complexes.