During the 2nd century BC with the partial centuriation of the Cispadana and the territory of Benaco, the villa became widespread within an equalitarian structure, which assigned uniform portions of land to the colonists; therefore a certain period of time elapsed before the economic transformations led to the formation of large landholdings, without however reaching the large dimensions of the slave villas of central Italy (II century BC - I century AD).
Roman on Lake Garda: At the end of the 3rd century, a phase of depopulation of the countryside and the subdivision of the territory between some large villas emerged which, in the face of the decline of political authority, also exercised functions of control and organization of the territory, with a concentration of economic power and land in a typology of sumptuous villa (see the villa of Desenzano, the most important of the late antique Cisalpine villas). The political choice to move the capital first to Milan in 286 and subsequently to Ravenna in 402 does not follow an attraction towards the new capitals of the construction of the villas, but instead confirms the choice to build them at the great lakes, preferring the landscape aspect from one side and that of territorial autonomy on the other, until arriving, towards the fifth century, to the last transformation of the villas with the inclusion in them of structures relating to the spread of Christianity. At a later stage some large villas will be transformed into places of worship and points of aggregation and organization of the Christianized territory.
