#tibur

Mosaico del panorama tiburtino. Tempio della Sibilla.

THE ACADEMY

The Academy is a lesser-known collection of sacred and secular buildings, including a circular temple of Apollo, erected on an artificial terrace above the rest of the villa. One entered this area from an imposing domed vestibule, which led into a vast peristyle garden. The vestibule was decorated with stuccoed walls, opus sectile pavements and sculpture. The complex groundplan recalls the triclinium of the Piazza d’Oro. Embedded in a group of smaller rooms, the Temple of Apollo is actually smaller than the vestibule.

Constructed during the second phase of work at the villa, the overall function of the Academy is not known, although the sitings of some of the buildings suggest an astronomical function. The Academy is only portion of Hadrian’s Villa on private property. Its neglected and derelict state reflects the lack of state funding.

The celebrated marble centaurs today in the Musei Capitolini, were discovered in the vestibule of the Academy by excavations led by Cardinal Giuseppe Alessandro Furietti in 1736. Carved in bigio morato marble almost certainly in a workshop in Aphrodisias, the contrasting old and young centaurs are copies of Hellenistic bronzes. Furietti’s dig also uncovered the equally-famous dove mosaic. This opus vermiculatum work was found in a small room adjacent to the Temple of Apollo. The quality of these works indicate the importance of this part of the villa to Hadrian.

Miscellaneous things! Here we have -

MARITIME THEATRE

The misleadingly-named Maritime Theatre dates from the first building campaign at the villa, carried out in AD 121 - 126, while the emperor was traveling. The structure circular structure built on an artificial island, surrounded by a moat and an Ionic peristyle walkway, is now correctly understood a self-contained Roman domus, with a fauces, atrium , triclinium and cubicula. This island house provided Hadrian with a private retreat, symbolically removed by a moat, from the swarms of officials, servants, and suppliants carrying on the business of the empire in the greater villa. The circular waterway also served as the imperial natatio.

The inventive island domus is unique to Hadrian’s villa. Lacking ancient descriptions of its purpose, and with no monuments with which the building might be compared, excavators of the 18th century imagined the circular structure to be a theatre designed for the staging of sea battles.

Several areas of the villa were were planned to astonish the visitor with unexpected vistas and surprising spatial transitions. At the Piazza d’Oro, the off-angle approach through a modest hallway deferred the transition to the huge, quadriporticus garden until the last minute. Visitors to the Maritime Theatre approached through a rectangular pro-naos only to find themselves outside once again in a circular space.

The deception of the viewer through the concealing of the circular form of the building with a rectilinear entryway must have pleased both host and guests because it was reprised on a grander scale at Hadrian’s best-known architectural undertaking, the Pantheon, about six years later.