Villa or sanctuary? The so-called villa of Clodius at the Via Appia

Within the framework of a recently established Danish-Italian research project, “Contextualising the past in the Alban Hills”, it has been possible to undertake investigations of the Roman archaeological remains preserved inside Villa Santa Caterina, Castel Gandolfo, at the 13th mile on the Via Appia. The last scholar to study this complex was G. Lugli in 1914, and it has ever since been interpreted as a Roman villa, sometimes called the Villa of Clodius. This article reassesses this interpretation in light of the ongoing investigations and argues that the building on the site should rather be interpreted as the sacrarium/sacellum of the goddess Bona Dea known from literary sources.