Licenza (Orazio Villa)

You reach Villa Orazio by means of Via Licentina either by car or on foot; before arriving in the town of Licenza a well-indicated street breaks off tot he left and leads to the parking area for the excavations; in correspondence with the intersection there is a lovely pedestrian path that goes gently uphill in the woods until reaching the entrance to the excavations.
The remains of Orazio Villa are very interesting: the site was object of various successions of countryside excavations in the which the American Academy collaborated as Superintendent; in the course of the excavations the happenings of this ancient construction were clarified.
In fact, while Orazio often mentions this modest house in his letters, donated by his guardianMecenate, it is clear that the excavated remains belong to a large, luxurious residence (evidenced by the finding of a lot of marble, mural paintings and fixed paintings); some archaeologists hypothesized that it had nothing to do with Villa di Orazio
Instead, through very recent excavations, it was made clear that on the first building of the Augustine era (that is, at the time of Orazio) another was implanted around 100 years later, with a much more stately character.
Since Orazio, dead without any direct heir, left his goods to his emperor and friend, Augustine, the hypothesis actually prevails that Emperor Vespasiano, originally from Rieti, about a century later decided to "restructure" the possession, by now part of the Empire, making it into a villa suited for the Emperor to stay in during the trip to his birth city.