Mosnje Roman Villa
About
A farming estate rose near Radovljica in the first half of the 1st century CE, five stone buildings together forming one working unit beneath the Julian Alps. Its main residence held seven rooms including a private bath suite of caldarium, tepidarium, and frigidarium, the hot room paved in a black-and-white mosaic and warmed by a hypocaust and its own hot-water tank. Buried and forgotten for centuries, the villa's stone footings resurfaced only in 2006.
What happened here
A working estate with a comfortable house attached, and the proportions vary with how rich the owner is and how often he visits. The farm side has presses for oil and wine, threshing floors, storage sunk into the ground, stables and quarters for the workforce. The residential side has baths, dining rooms sited for the view, mosaics, and a garden with water in it. A manager runs the place year-round and reports; the owner arrives for the vintage and for the summer. Produce goes to market or to the owner's town house, and the accounts are kept in detail. Some villas are pure retreat with no farm at all, built on a cliff or a lake specifically to be looked at from a boat.
Sources
- https://www.radolca.si/en/activities-and-experiences/hiking/themed-hiking-trails/mosnje-archeological-trail
- https://www.academia.edu/17119341/3D_Reconstruction_of_a_Balneum_in_a_Roman_Villa_Rustica_Mo%C5%A1nje_Slovenia
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mo%C5%A1nje
- https://www.researchgate.net/publication/300410134_3D_reconstruction_of_a_balneum_in_a_Roman_Villa_Rustica_Mosnje_Slovenia
Nearby
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