Italy

This chapter discusses peninsular Italy, with the exclusion of the city of Rome, and addresses three main themes: urban landscapes, rural landscapes, and villages. The discussion follows a geographic organization, by treating the north, center, and south of the peninsula separately. The discussion of the urban landscapes emphasizes the influence Rome's architecture had on the development of Italian towns and the impact of euergetism and of new major transport routes on urban monumental centers. The section on rural landscapes discusses villas and issues of longstanding scholarly debate such as the relationship between farms and villas and to what extent very large estates were present in Italy. The contribution of field surveys to the understanding of the countryside is also discussed. Imperial estates and the possible higher social status of their servile workforce is illustrated by the concrete example of the Vagnari villa in southern Italy.