Varignano Roman Villa

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Varignano Roman Villa is an ancient Roman house in Varignano, now part of Porto Venere in La Spezia, Italy. The site has an archaeological museum.

The first building dates to the 1st century BCE and was a house with a farm used to produce olive oil. It sits by the Seno del Varignano Vecchio, overlooking the sea, near the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Graces and northeast of the Varignano Fortress.

The villa had two main areas: the pars urbana (living area) and the pars fructuaria (oil-production area), separated by a courtyard where olives were pressed in a torcularium. The owner’s residence was a single-story home with a mosaic-paved atrium, living rooms, and bedrooms.

In the olive oil area there were two presses and a cella oleario (oil store) that were in use until the 1st century AD. After that, olive oil production stopped, and the vilicus (manager) oversaw a major rebuild, adding heated rooms and private frigidaria (cool rooms). The cistern connected to these rooms is almost unique for northern Italy. The villa remained in use until the 6th century.