Trust in national and local institutions is an essential component of democracy. The literature has dealt mainly with the former, while less attention has been given to the latter. This paper advances a novel theoretical approach to inquire about trust in local institutions, which is also used to test national ones. We posit that trust is affected by the perceptions individuals have of the physical space where they live. Both a) the perceived quality of life in the neighbourhood where individuals live and b) the neighbourhood (perceived) peripherality are hypothesized to affect trust in local (and to a lesser extent) national institutions. We test our hypotheses in Italy, over a large representative sample of more than 40.000 respondents. We show that both variables are crucial predictors of local trust, but only the perceived quality of life predicts national trust. Equally important, social, cultural and economic individual capital does not modify the relation.

A project-planning grant to the National Trust from the Heritage Lottery Fund provided the context for a review of what had and had not been published since the villa's discovery in 1864. An Archaeological Data Service website will make public as soon as possible the material currently available to the Trust – without prejudicing subsequent publication in other forms – and will be kept up to date. Arrangements are also being made to complete the post-excavation work on the investigations carried out between 1994 and 2006 and to publish them. Significant changes in knowledge arising from this latest phase are summarized.