Villa Adriana (Tivoli)

The Villa was built by Emperor Hadrian as a suburban residence resting at the foot of the Tiburtine Mountains, on a plateau on the Tivoli hills, a city away from the city and it is now regarded as the “Queen of ancient villas”. The works lasted about twenty years, from 118 to 138 AD, and they required the use of advanced construction and hydraulics techniques. The emperor, a formidable strategist, chose this location for his villa for a number of reasons. The place had a high scenic value, with lush flora, fresh leafy woods, meadows and fields; many water bodies streamed down the young Tiburtine mountains chain (these mountains were formed in the Pliocene, i.e. between five and two million years ago), and because of the territory morphology and orogeny the mountains featured not only fresh and abundant surface waters but also thermal springs. The Villa’s closeness to Rome (only 17 Roman miles, that is 28 kilometres through the Via Tiburtina main road) combined with the panoramic, elevated position of the Villa and its being located between two tributaries of the Aniene, made it a strategic site, handy and at the same time easily defensible and controllable; and last but not least it was also not far from the local travertine quarries.

The architectural project, developed by Hadrian himself, is a complex made of fully harmonised structures of that age that together made up the imago mundi of the Roman Empire at the peak of its expansion and stretched over about 120 hectares. The Villa mirrors and reproduces the structure of a Roman city or of the provinces of the Empire and for this reason it shall be viewed as an ideal city where all parts and components harmonise one with each other in an allegory of Hadrian’s cultural and political universe, a symbolic description of the Mediterranean world of the time. The Villa is a summa of the memoirs of Hadrian’s travels in the provinces of the Empire, voyages he had undertaken to consolidate his power; the most imposing and beautiful buildings of the Villa are dedicated to Greece, Egypt, Syria. The Pecile features the Stoa of Athens, the famous portico where the Greeks discussed about philosophy and science; The Canopus, instead is clearly inspired by the Orient, namely by the Alexandrian culture and the Nile area, highlighted by water being the key element. In addition to the Imperial Palace, which stands in the space of ​​a previous Republican Villa, there were temples, libraries, theatres, spas, nymphs, the Odeon, the arena, the academy and also parks, warehouses, servants’ quarters and garrisons. The Villa’s decorative and sculptural apparatus is astounding: statues, fountains, colonnades, marble, frescoes, stucco and polychrome mosaics everywhere. More recent studies, thanks also to the findings of latest excavations, have re-evaluated the importance of the “service facilities” as the Hundred Chambers. The complexity and accuracy of these works suggest that they had an administrative and management function for the territory covered by the complex, which was not just an immense locus amoenus dedicated to the Emperor’s otium and to celebrating Hadrian’s ideology.

The Empire’s decline also led to several raids on the Villa also by the Ostrogoths ruled by Totila who stationed his army there. For many centuries the Villa was left in a state of neglect and exploited as a quarry for building materials used in Tivoli and by the Roman nobles for their own residences. In the fifteenth century it was identified as Hadrian’s villa thanks to the works of humanist Flavio Biondo. The Villa’s amazing wealth of statues was plundered gradually by popes and cardinals, from the sixteenth century onwards. The superb ruins of the Villa have been studied by artists such as Raphael, Michelangelo, Palladio, Canova and Borromini, essentially drawing the path for the evolution of the universal history of art. In the late nineteenth century, when the Villa became part of the territory and heritage of the Kingdom of Italy the first systematic and accurate recovery works started and carried on throughout all of the 20th century, featuring the work of archaeologists and international specialists. Excavations and researches continue still today since the purpose of all the building has not been clarified yet.

The Canopus is an artificial valley that extends for about 200 meters. It is inspired by the Egyptian canal that connected the eponymous town of Canopus, home to a famous temple dedicated to Serapis, to Alexandria, in the Nile delta. In Villa Adriana a channel runs through all of the valley and ends in the Serapeum, a temple-nymphaeum with a semicircular exedra. The Serapeum was entirely adorned with statues depicting the cult of Osiris and the cult of Serapis, and was dedicated to Antinous, the emperor’s young favourite, mysteriously drowned in the Nile during a trip to Egypt.

There was a large waterfall, operated and regulated by canals and small waterlocks that symbolised the flooding of the Nile and was dominated by the statue of the goddess Isis. It seems that some of the statues, like that of a crocodile, contribute to creating water games because they have hydraulic mechanisms for the passage of water inside. The Canopus and Serapeum were regarded as shrines and religious places, but today researchers also consider it likely that they may have been simply spectacular, imposing buildings for the Emperor’s feasts.

The Theatre is a circular-shaped ensemble of buildings, whose diameter is about 43 meters. An arcade forms an ellipse, at the centre of which there once was an island, separated by a channel that could be reached by drawbridges. On the artificial island stood a nine room villa. Some think the villa was the private retreat of Hadrian.

Villa Adriana played a crucial role in the rediscovery of ancient architecture thanks to the humanists of the sixteenth century. Pirro Ligorio, on behalf of Cardinal Ippolito d’Este, studied the remains of the Villa and carried out the first excavations for the recovery of statues and works of art to be placed in the princely Villa on the Tiburtina which he was finishing for his client (Villa d’Este). Throughout the Renaissance the Villa played a key role in the rediscovery of ancient art and architecture and was visited by the most brilliant Italian artists. In the centuries that followed, the Villa became the symbol of the surrounding pastoral woodland. An idyllic place for the 17th-18th century travellers, with ruins picturesquely emerging between the branches of vines, between the olive trees or among the wild foliage. The theme of decay and at the same time persistence of the ancient captivated the minds of nineteenth-century intellectuals who wrote in their letters descriptions of the Villa and reproduced views of it in drawings and engravings in which Villa Adriana appears wrapped by weeds, impoverished by centuries of depredations, but still extremely impressive and able to evoke the powerful appeal of the Classical Age. The longing for the lost splendour, the rampaging neglect that doomed Hadrian’s glories to oblivion, all of these are romantic themes that come back in the writings and illustrations of travellers to further reinforce the myth of Villa Adriana.

Emperor Hadrian (Italica province, Spain, 76 AD – Baiae, 138 AD) In his reign Hadrian, of Hispanic origins, established and consolidated a unified Mediterranean empire based on the harmonisation of the Western Roman culture with the Greek-oriental culture. Hadrian promoted his universalist view of the empire, of which he was deeply convinced, by travelling in the provinces, reforming architecture and reforming the public administration. Hadrian had a multifaceted personality and he dabbled in various arts, including music, architecture, literature, philosophy.

►   “Il Poicile è occupato da sei gran vigne, tra l’altre quelle di Bianchino, e da altri luoghi, che si sementano. […] l’Accademia è occupata dalla Vigna di Mr. Persio, e da quelli di M. Simon Petrarca, e dall’altre di altri cittadini. […] Il Liceo è occupato dagl’Oliveti di M. Francisco Censi, e da gl’altri suoi Parenti, con altre cane e vigne”.

Pirro Ligorio (descrizione della villa nella metà del XVI secolo)

►  “Per mezzo della scala […] si saliva al Poggio sopra il Canopo. Bella oltremodo è la veduta, che ti si apre dinnanzi da quel sommo. Le loggie laterali del Canopo, le Terme, le ruine del Palazzo, le Cento Camerelle, il Pecile fanno un contrasto ammirabile co’ pini, co’ cipressi, cogli ulivi, ed in lontananza il piccolo castello, che è piatato sul monte Patulo serve pittoricamente a riempire un vano, che troveresti nel quadro senza di esso. Copiata alla meglio quest’imponente prospettiva, m’avviai alla volta dell’Accademia”.

Filippo Alessandro Sebastiani (Viaggio a Tivoli, 1825)

►  “L’insieme era coordinato da imponenti sistemazioni arboree e giardiniere disseminate di fontane, di ninfei e di opere decorative di ogni genere, sì che il complesso doveva presentarsi pittoresco e unitario, e di una tale inconfondibile singolarità da non trovare alcun riscontro in opere similari del mondo antico e moderno”.

Francesco Fariello (Arte dei Giardini, Roma, 1967)

►  “La Villa e i suoi edifici, fatti per l’intimità e il riposo, sono le vestigia di un lusso senza fasto, meno imperiali possibile, furono create da un fine conoscitore, che seppe unire le delizie dell’arte con la dolce vita dei campi”.

Marguerite Yourcenar, Memorie di Adriano

Hadrian had planned large spaces for the garden in his Villa, as part of a unified program that featured the dialogue between architecture, landscape and artificial gardens. He carefully chose the plants and crops and alternated fruit trees to ornamental trees; the cypresses bordered the various areas and pathways, there were laurel thickets and acanthus graciously framing the fountains alongside with water-loving ferns and flowering borders. The vineyards and olive groves, planted in the centuries that followed, became part of the image of the Villa and provided a model for the Renaissance gardens. The use of statues and the fundamental role of water games, sometimes very complex, represented also a model for the aristocratic gardens of the Renaissance, inspired by the Classical age. The gardens of the Medici villas and also in the Villa d’Este are inspired by the imperial garden of Hadrian.

Villa Adriana. Paesaggio antico e ambiente moderno: elementi di novità e ricerche in corso, a cura di A.M. Reggiani, Atti del Convegno, Roma, Palazzo Massimo Terme, 23-24 giugno 2000, Electa, Milano, 2000

F. Gregorovius , Vita di Adriano: memorie dell’età dell’oro dell’Impero, Fratelli Melita, Genova, 1988

M.A. Levi, Adriano: un ventennio di cambiamento, Rusconi, Milano, 1994

M.A. Levi, Adriano Augusto: studi e ricerche, L’Erma di Bretschneider, Roma, 1993

E. Salza Prina Ricotti, Villa Adriana: il sogno di un imperatore, L’Erma di Bretschneider, Roma, 2001

M. Yourcenar, Memorie di Adriano, Einaudi, Torino, 1981

whc.unesco.org/en/list/907

www.unesco.beniculturali.it

www.villaadriana.beniculturali.it/

The Villa was built by Emperor Hadrian as a suburban residence resting at the foot of the Tiburtine Mountains, on a plateau on the Tivoli hills a city away from the city and it is now regarded as the “Queen of ancient villas’. The works lasted about twenty years, from 118 to 138 AD, and the required the use of advanced construction and hydraulics techniques. The emperor chose this location for his villa for a number of reasons. From the scenic/landscape point of view, the area had a great abundance of water and vegetation, and in addition to that the Villa’s closeness to Rome (only 17 Roman miles, that is 28 kilometres through the Via Tiburtina main road) combined with the panoramic , elevated position of the Villa and its being located between two tributaries of the Aniene, made it a strategic site, handy and at the same time easily defensible and controllable; and last but not least it was also not far from the local travertine quarries.

The architectural project, developed by Hadrian himself, is a complex of structures harmonised together and covering about 120 hectares. The Villa reproduces the structure of a Roman city or of the provinces of the Empire and for this reason it shall be viewed as as an ideal city where all parts and components harmonise one with each other in a symbolic description of the Mediterranean world in the time of Hadrian. The Villa is a recollection of all the voyages Hadrian undertook to consolidate his power; the most imposing and beautiful buildings of the Villa are dedicated to Greece, Egypt, Syria: The Pecile features the Stoa of Athens, the famous portico where the Greeks discussed about philosophy and science; the Canopusis clearly inspired by the Orient, namely by the Nile area in Egypt. In addition to the Imperial Palace, which stands in the space of ​​a previous Republican Villa, there were temples, libraries, theatres, spas, nymphs, the Odeon, the arena, the academy and also parks, warehouses, servants’ quarters and garrisons. The Villa’s decorative and sculptural apparatus is astounding: statues, fountains, colonnades, marble, frescoes, stucco and polychrome mosaics are everywhere.

With the decline of the Empire there were several raids on the Villa, some carried out by the Ostrogoths ruled by Totila who stationed his army there. For many centuries the Villa was left in a state of neglect and exploited as a quarry for building materials used in Tivoli and by the Roman nobles for their own residences. In the fifteenth century it was identified as Hadrian’s villa thanks to the works of humanist Flavio Biondo. The Villa’s amazing wealth of statues was plundered gradually by popes and cardinals, from the sixteenth century onwards. The superb ruins of the Villa have been studied by Raphael, Michelangelo, Palladio, Canova and Borromini. In the late 19th century, when the Villa became part of the territory and heritage of the Kingdom of Italy the first systematic and accurate recovery works started and carried on throughout all of the 20th century, featuring the work of archaeologists and international specialists. Excavations and researches continue still today since the purpose of all the building has not been clarified yet.

The Canopus is an artificial valley that extends for about 200 meters. It is inspired by the Egyptian canal that connected the eponymous town of Canopus, home to a famous temple dedicated to Serapis, to Alexandria, in the Nile delta. In Villa Adriana a channel runs through all of the valley and ends in the Serapeum, a temple-nymphaeum with a semicircular exedra. The Serapeum was entirely adorned with statues depicting the cult of Osiris and the cult of Serapis, and was dedicated to Antinous, a young man who was very close to the Emperor, mysteriously drowned in the Nile during a trip to Egypt. There was a large waterfall, operated and regulated by canals and small waterlocks that symbolised the flooding of the Nile and was dominated by the statue of the goddess Isis. The Canopus and Serapeum were regarded as shrines and religious places, but today researchers also consider it likely that it may have been simply a spectacular, imposing building for the Emperor’s feasts.

The Theatre is a circular-shaped ensemble of buildings, whose diameter is about 43 meters. An arcade forms an ellipse, at the centre of which there once was an island, separated by a channel that could be reached by drawbridges. On the artificial island stood a nine room villa. Some think the villa was the private retreat of Hadrian.

Villa Adriana played a key role in the rediscovery of ancient architecture thanks to the humanists of the sixteenth century. Pirro Ligorio, on behalf of Cardinal Ippolito d’Este, studied the remains of the Villa and carried out the first excavations for the recovery of statues and works of art to be placed in the princely Villa on the Tiburtina which he was was finishing for his client (Villa d’Este). Throughout the Renaissance the Villa played a key role in the rediscovery of ancient art and architecture and was visited by the most brilliant Italian artists. In the centuries that followed the Villa was a favoured and much loved destination of the 17th-18th century travellers, with its ruins standing proud among the branches of vines, between the olive trees or among the wild foliage. The longing for the lost splendour, the rampaging neglect that doomed Hadrian’s glories to oblivion, all of these are romantic themes that come back in the writings and illustrations of travellers to further reinforce the myth of Villa Adriana.

Emperor Hadrian (Italica province, Spain, 76 AD – Baiae, 138 AD) In his reign Hadrian, of Hispanic origins, established and consolidated a Mediterranean empire based on the harmonisation of the Western Roman culture with the Greek-oriental culture. Hadrian promoted his universalist view of the empire, of which he was deeply convinced, by travelling in the provinces, reforming architecture and reforming the public administration. Hadrian had a multifaceted personality and he dabbled in various arts, including music, architecture, literature, philosophy.

Hadrian had planned large spaces for the garden in his Villa, as part of a unified program that featured the dialogue between architecture, landscape and artificial gardens. He carefully chose the plants and crops and alternated fruit trees to ornamental trees; the cypresses bordered the various areas and pathways, there were laurel thickets and acanthus graciously framing the fountains alongside with water-loving ferns and flowering borders. The vineyards and olive groves, planted in the centuries that followed, became part of the image of the Villa and provided a model for the Renaissance gardens. The use of statues and the fundamental role of water games, sometimes very complex, represented also a model for the aristocratic gardens of the Renaissance, inspired by the Classical age. The gardens of the Medici villas and also in the Villa d’Este are inspired by the imperial garden of Hadrian.

Multifaceted: which has many different skills, competences, interests; someone or something that has many facets, faces, sides.

Pillage:looting, plunder.

Suburban: located far away from the city centre, either at the periphery of a city or just outside it.

Syncretism: the mixture, contact and fusion of different cultural traditions. The word is often used in the religious sphere to refer to contamination and exchange between different religions.