Built as a private summer retreat between
AD 118 and 134,
Hadrian's Villa was a vast open-air museum of the finest architecture of the
Roman world. The grounds of the
Imperial palace covered an area of
120 hectares (
300 acres) and were filled with full-scale reproductions of the emperor's favorite buildings from
Greece and
Egypt. Although excavations on this site began in the
16th century, many of the ruins lying scattered in the surrounding fields have yet to be identified with any certainty.
The grounds of the villa make a very picturesque site for a picnic, with scattered fragments of columns lying among olive trees and cypresses. For an idea of how the whole complex would have looked in its heyday, study the scale model in the building beside the car park. The most important buildings are signposted and several have been partially restored or reconstructed. One of the most impressive is the so-called
Maritime Theater. This is a round pool with an island in the middle, surrounded by columns.
The island, reached by means of a swing bridge, was probably
Hadrian's private studio, where he withdrew from the cares of the
Empire to indulge in his two favourite pastimes, painting and architecture.
There were also theatres,
Greek and
Latin libraries, two bathhouses, extensive housing for guests and the palace staff, and formal gardens with fountains, statues and pools.
Hadrian also loved
Greek philosophy. One part of the gardens in thought to have been Hadrian's reproduction of the
Grove of
Academe, were
Plato lectured to his students. He also had a replica made of the Stoà
Poikile, a beautiful painted colonnade in
Athens, from which the
Stoic philosophers took their name. This copy enclosed a great piazza with a central pool. The so-called
Hall of the Philosophers close to the Poikile was probably a library. The most ambitious of Hadrian's replicas was the
Canopus, a sanctuary of the god Serapis near
Alexandria.
For this a canal
119 metres (130 yards) long was dug and
Egyptian statues were imported to decorate the temple and its grounds. This impressive piece of engineering has been restored and the banks of the canal are lined with caryatids. Another picturesque spot in the grounds is the
Vale of Tempe, the legendary haunt of the goddess
Diana with a stream representing the river Peneios.
Below ground the emperor even built a fanciful recreation of the underworld,
Hades, reached through underground tunnels, of which there were many linking the various parts of the villa. Plundered by barbarians who camped here in the 6th and
8th centuries, the villa fell into disrepair.
Its marble was burnt to make lime for cement and
Renaissance antiquarians contributed even further to its destructions.
Statues unearthed in the grounds are on show in museums around
Europe.
The Vatican's Egyptian
Collection has many fine works that were found here.
- published: 24 Jan 2016
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