DRAFT

Suburban Villa

Contributor: Yvette Pollack
Published: 2021-04-21
Modified: 2025-06-29

Province

Location

Sublocation

The Roman town, located at the western end of Lake Geneva at the confluence of the Rhone and Arve rivers, grew from a late first century B.C. settlement of the Gallic tribe of the Allobroges. The town flourished until the third century A.D., and the territory around Geneva attracted many villa owners. There are few remains of Late Roman Geneva, but it appears to have been fortified around A.D. 300 by a circuit wall.

Garden

Suburban Villa

Keywords

Garden Description

This villa suburbana in the modern Parc de la Grange lay outside the town on the southern shore of Lake Geneva. The villa, built originally in the mid 1st c. A.D., was extended in the 2nd and 3rd c., and was inhabited until the 4th c. (Fig. 8.2). It measured 40 x 30.50 m., and it had a separate bath complex on the northwest. The entire estate was 450 m. long and approximately 180 m. in width.

A peristyle courtyard surrounded by covered walkways on four sides took up an area of 22 x 11.80 m., about half of the building. In the center of the courtyard was a pool, very fragmentarily preserved, around which, in all probability, were plantings (G on plan).

To the northwest of the house were enclosed areas which have been interpreted as gardens (G on plan). In the corner of the most easterly of these was an L-shaped pergola. The property between the house and the shore of the lake at the north was terraced and possibly designed as a landscaped park or left as a "natural" park.

Plans

None Available

Images

None Available

Bibliography

  • L. Blondel and G. Darier, "La villa romaine de la Grange, Genève," Anzeiger für schweizerische Geschichte 24, 1922:70-88, pls. 1-2. (worldcat)

  • W. Drack, "Die Gutshöfe," in Ur- und frühgeschichtliche Archäologie der Schweiz 5, Basel, 1975, p. 58, fig. 21. (worldcat)

  • M.-A. Haldimann, P. André, E. Broillet-Ramjoué, Matthieu Poux, "Entre résidence indigène et domus gallo-romaine: le domaine antique du Parc de La Grange (GE)," Archéologie Suisse 24.2, 2001: 2-15, figs. 4, 13-14, 17. (worldcat)

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