Professor Thomas Howe will present a new interpretation of the site of the Roman villas of ancient Stabiae in Helsinki, Finland April 18-20 in an international conference entitled “Public and Private in the Roman House.” The large Villa San Marco has long been known to have been built right next to the town walls of Stabiae, but it now appears that it may have been joined to a townhouse next door by a bridge which ran over the out of use city gate. A parallel for a similar property in a highly prominent position is known from literary sources: the two townhouses of one Gn. Calpurnius Piso which where conjoined by a bridge running over the Porta Fontinalis in Rome.