Villa Romana delle Colonnacce a Castel di Guido

The Roman villa dates from the 2nd century B.C. to the 4th century A.D. and is situated on a plateau within the municipal farm.

The villa has structures from the Republican and Imperial periods. The entire productive part, including the threshing floor or covered courtyard, dates back to the Republican period: the large room retains the bases of three supports for the roof, while the floor has been removed and there is a circular well in the centre. There is a cistern for storing rainwater; inside the cistern are the bases of the pillars that supported the vaulted ceiling. In the workroom there is a well and its underground pipe. Two rooms housed a facility for processing wine and oil. There was a press connected to the collection tanks, while a lower room housed the counterweights of the press itself and a kitchen with large terracotta containers (dolii).

The residential part, dating from the imperial period, has an atrium, the oldest part of the Roman house, in which the altar of the Lari, the deities who protected the house, was kept. In the centre is a marble basin (compluvium) in which rainwater was collected from a rectangular hole in the roof (impluvium). Dining rooms, possibly tricliniar, were spacious and had rich floors and beautiful frescoed decorations on the walls. There were corridors that allowed the passage of servants behind the large dining rooms without disturbing the diners or the rest of the owners. The Peristyle or porticoed garden: this was the most popular room in the house, usually with a central garden and a fountain. Twelve columns supported the roof of the portico, which sloped down towards the central area.

In 1976 the Soprintendenza Archeologica di Roma recovered valuable mosaics and paintings, which are now on display to the public in the National Roman Museum in Palazzo Massimo.