It is now nearly half a century since the publication in 1976 of J. Percival's seminal The Roman Villa, which explored origins and regional types, society and tenure, economy, late antiquity and even the post-classical period. Each of these aspects has received much study and debate over the subsequent decades, yet there had been no recent overall study of villas across the Empire to bring this scholarship together. The volume under review offers chapters on villas in the Vesuvian region, elsewhere in Italy, Sicily, Gaul, the Iberian peninsula, Malta, North Africa, Israel, Greece and the eastern Adriatic. There are also thematic explorations of villas in relation to ideals of elite leisure, late antiquity, Christianity, seaside and maritime environments and the later reception of the villa. The decision to publish all chapters in English makes this a particularly useful resource for many students.

While the geographical range is broad (even the north-western provinces receive brief attention in U. Rothe, ‘The Roman Villa: Definitions and Variations’), nearly half the chapters focus on Italy, which also dominates much of the discussion in the introductory chapter, ‘The Roman Villa: an Overview’ (Marzano and Métraux). The chronological span is extensive, beginning with the second century bce (e.g. G.P. Brogiolo and A. Chavarría Arnau, ‘Villas in Northern Italy’) and continuing to late antiquity, which receives attention within a number of chapters (e.g. the aforementioned chapter on northern Italy; M. Gualtieri, ‘Roman Villas in Southern Italy’; R.J.A. Wilson, ‘Roman Villas in Sicily’; and L. Buffat, ‘Villas in South and Southwestern Gaul’). There is, in addition, a section dedicated to late antiquity, with chapters on ‘Themes’ (Métraux), ‘Aristocratic Residences in Late Antique Hispania’ (G. Ripoll) and ‘Christianization of Villas’ (K. Bowes). Two final chapters address seventeenth- to twentieth-century reconstructions of classical villas (P. de la Ruffinière du Prey, ‘Conviviality versus Seclusion in Pliny's Tuscan and Laurentine Villas’ and K. Lapatin, ‘The Villa dei Papiri: Herculaneum and Malibu’).

The term ‘villa’ is used in its most extensive sense to include luxury seaside retreats (e.g. T.N. Howe, ‘The Social Status of the Villas of Stabiae’) and elite town houses (Z. Weiss, ‘Houses of the Wealthy in Roman Galilee’) as well as the aristocratic centres of productive rural estates (e.g. F. Teichner, ‘Roman Villas in the Iberian Peninsula’). Wilson (in ‘Roman Villas in North Africa’) draws attention to the existence of different types of villa in North Africa, a region often neglected in discussions of the phenomenon. Another unusual and welcome inclusion is the villas of Malta (A. Bonanno, ‘Roman Villas in the Maltese Archipelago’, also offering interesting discussion of the identity of villa owners). The integration of these villa residences with smaller farmsteads and hamlets (perhaps in many cases dependent), artisanal sites, way-stations, cult places, roads and road stations, rivers and installations for water management (aqueducts and watermills), and small market centres is mentioned in only a few chapters, although O. Tal and I. Roll discuss a mansio (‘The Roman Villa at Apollonia [Israel]’).

The book is most emphatically about elite residences. Its focus is overwhelmingly on the architectural qualities, typology, ideology, decoration, reception rooms and bathhouses of elegant upper-class houses. In spite of the stated goal to ‘present very recent discoveries and ideas about villas’ and to investigate their ‘social and economic function’ (p. xxx), the volume for the most part synthesises a traditional approach to the study of villas as sites of elite leisure. Architectural principles receive extensive attention (e.g. J.R. Clarke, ‘The Building History and Aesthetics of the “Villa of Poppaea” at Torre Annunziata’; M. Zarmakoupi, ‘Landscape at the “Villa of Poppaea” (Villa A) at Torre Annunziata’; M. Aoyagi et al., ‘The “Villa of Augustus” at Somma Vesuviana’), as do mosaics and wall paintings (e.g. A. Campanelli et al., ‘The Roman Villa of Positano’). With only a few exceptions (e.g. Marzano, ‘Maritime Villas and the Resources of the Sea’; W. Bowden, ‘Villas of the Eastern Adriatic and Ionian Coastlands’; M. Papaioannou, ‘Villas in Roman Greece’), the economic aspects of rural villas receive only brief attention.

This is somewhat at odds with the shift in scholarly focus, over the past two decades, from the architectural qualities of landowners’ elegant residences to the productive functions of villa estates. This shift has been stimulated by the increasing contribution of zooarchaeology, reflected in the publication almost simultaneously with this book of a special issue of the European Journal of Archaeology (2017) on animal husbandry in the western provinces. Our understanding of the nature of villa sites has been immeasurably enhanced by the examination of the species and sexes represented (reflecting husbandry practices); butchery and age at kill (indicating the purpose for which animals were kept); stress pathologies (indicating whether animals were used for traction); and animal stature (indicating breeding practices and integration with imperial and commercial systems). Osteoarchaeology of human remains has informed us about diet, health and disease, status differences and even migration patterns within the population of some villa sites. Archaeobotany reveals patterns of grain selection, arboriculture, viticulture, the presence of pastures, wetlands and woodlands, and the environmental impact of villa estates. Considerable advances have been made in the analysis of the often more ephemeral productive facilities of villa estates, such as grain storage buildings, artisanal quarters, wine and oil making facilities and animal barns (e.g. in another contemporaneous publication, F. Trément [ed.], Produire, transformer et stocker dans les campagnes des Gaules romaines [2017]). The integration of these approaches into the analysis of villas is exemplified in recent villa publications such as E. Fentress et al. (edd.), Villa Magna (2016), with extensive chapters on the winery and the workers’ accommodation, including the osteoarchaeology of child burials; or L. Colominas, P. Castanyer and J. Tremoleda, JRA 27 (2014) and L. Colominas et al., QI 499 (2019), in which work areas, archaeobotany and the faunal assemblage are analysed to reveal much about diet and land use at a villa site in Spain.

The main strength of this volume is the consistent integration of textual and epigraphic evidence with archaeological remains, a valuable addition to the field. Many chapters connect the archaeology of villas with the writings of Vitruvius (e.g. A. Wallace-Hadrill, ‘The Villa of the Mysteries at Pompeii and the Ideals of Hellenistic Hospitality’), the agronomists from Cato to Palladius and the Geoponika, literary texts such as Cicero and Apuleius, inscriptions and early Christian writers. There are numerous villa plans, plates of mosaics (a few in colour) and some maps. The book will be of particular value to students and scholars of architectural history and the social history of elite life.