University of Virginia Library

Other porticus villas in the territory of the
Salian Franks

The porticus villa at Konz is not the only example of its
kind north of the Alps. In the early 1930s of this century
the Dutch excavator W. C. Braat unearthed on a hill
called Kloosterberg near Plasmolen, parish Mook, in the
province of Limburg, Holland, the foundations of a
Roman villa, which he interpreted to have been composed
of a large central hall, flanked by two open courts with
living ranges grouped around them on the three remaining
sides (fig. 242).[295] Another luxurious Roman porticus villa
of this type had been excavated as early as 1904-1906, at
Wittlich on the Lieser river, a northern tributary of the
Moselle.[296] This, however, exhausts our knowledge of this
building type. No other Roman villas or palaces of comparable
plan appear to have been found anywhere else in
the Roman Empire; and it may be significant for our
problem that the only four examples known to date are
located within an air distance of no more than 62 (Wittlich),
75 (Trier and Konz) and 87 (Kloosterberg) miles respectively
from the Palace at Aachen, where the details for the
scheme of the Plan of St. Gall were worked out.