My Man Hadrian

 

I've been wanting to write about my visit to Hadrian's Villa since returning from my week in Rome in 2024! Recently, something prompted me to take a look at my photos, and begin browsing for useful sites. Looking at the photos takes me right back to the day and the place.

 I remember the long walk (always more reliable than buses when one doesn't know the system) from my digs near the Pantheon to the point along Via Cavour where we were to meet the bus. I met two other solo senior women travellers, a pleasant thing. True to form we didn't group, but drifted comfortably in and out of each other's day.  

The hour coach trip from Rome to Tivoli was fascinating, every moment a bonus tour. We arrived, landed and began the walk up to the villa through ancient olive trees. Such old souls they were. I could gladly have spent the day under their gnarled branches, listening to their stories. 

We had a terrific guide, and the vast place cast a spell immediately. Perhaps the best way to begin is with this 15-year old video with then British Museum Director Neil MacGregor.

 He explains that the estate covered around 300 acres, of which around 100 are accessible today. And villa is a misnomer; the place was "the summer administration centre for the whole of the Empire" with room for the emperor and his court, the officials, administrators, the army, and all the servants and slaves needed to make things run smoothly. MacGregor describes the complex as the Empire in miniature, caryatids and crocodiles equally at home, as the architect/artist Emperor brought home ideas from his extensive travels around his empire.

The Philosopher's Hall

I continue to be awed at the age of the place. Hadrian started work here when he became emperor in CE 117. I read somewhere that he didn't like the accommodations on Palatine Hill. On his death in 138, he bequeathed it to another emperor, but over time interest waned (as did the Empire) and the decline began. One source paints an evocative scene of vegetation and layers of earth gradually overrunning the once-proud site and it was lost to memory. 

The site of Villa Adriana was identified by humanist scholar Biondo Flavia* in 1461; he shared news of the discovery with Pope Pius II. A classic case of the 'Renaissance' on the ground. When I later visited the Villa d'Este in nearby Tivoli I heard that one Cardinal Ippolito II d'Este pillaged the Villa Adiana site of marble and statues to aggrandize his palace during the 16th century. A simple cleric.

 In 1870 the Italian state took over management and scholarship of the site and it was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1999.

 (*In a post from last December I tried to explain what that time must have looked like to those who lived it. Messy, exciting, confusing, dangerous. The neat modern term 'Renaissance' was first used in France in the 1850s - although Vasari gave him a hint. ) 

Credit: Wikipedia. Thanks guys.

This ProWalk video is an hour and fifty minutes of well filmed, captioned exploration of all sectors on the huge site. I'd suggest turning off the sound, as the crunching of footsteps on the gravel can be distracting. The camera took me (and will again) to places not featured on our tour, which wisely concentrated on some of the most well-known and unique features.

I'll pop up a few of my photos with captions and invite you to learn more about places that interest you, not from me, but from this link, an absolutely monumental project by the University of Virginia and partners, called The Digital Hadrian's Villa Project. Seriously good: 360 degree photos, aerial photos, interviews, a virtual tour, text about each area of the complex and places I haven't even visited yet. I know, pretty nerdy stuff, but impresssive for enthusiasts. Mark? Well done UVA!

The Maritime Theatre

The Maritime Theatre was fascinating. On this round island, Hadrian built a sumptuous private retreat, with drawbridge yet.

Three Exedras

I'm not going to talk about each of these photos. Let's face it, this walk was in 2024, memory fails, and there are loads of experts in the links. 

Here are art historians I enjoy, Beth Harris and Steven Zucker of SmartHistory, talking about the Maritime Theatre. Nice photos.

a Roman road, the 100 Chambers built into the Pecile elevation

the Large Baths

Dome with oculus

The Canopus

Egypt fascinated Hadrian. The Canopus is the most outstanding creation in this place of wonders. It's said he had it built to evoke the town of Canopus, linked by a canal to the Nile, where his young lover Antinous drowned. 

The site is majestic today, imagine what it would have been when the perimeter of the pool was bordered with marble colonnades, Egyptian and Greek sculpture, and beautifully dressed guests strolling to a festive banquet . The Serapeum, a domed artificial grotto at the far end was a dining complex featuring sumptuous fittings and a curtain fountain. 

I'm going to list a few more sites here (just for me). I have enjoyed researching this site so much, that I want to retain what I've learned in one spot. And this is it!

Here's a fun blog with loads of great photos.

This Live Virtual Guide link is a keeper, both for the curious name and the delightful Italian woman who shares her enthusiasm for the place.

I've lost track of a quirky virtual tour, created by Dr. Bernie Fisher and the Khan Academy, a walkthrough with 'Hadrian' hosting and explaining the rooms and their uses. 

And finally, I discovered to my delight that the entire Yale University course I took non-credit as a MOOC on the edX platform a few years ago, An Introduction to Roman Architecture, is available now on YouTube. What a wonderful world. The prof, Diana Kleiner also produced the text for the course, Roman Architecture: A Visual Guide, which I purchased on Kindle. Full of photos! Would cost a million dollars to publish traditionally. Here's a link to lecture #15, on the Pantheon and Villa Adriana; she gets to the villa at about the 48 minute mark. The other lectures of the course are readily accessible on YouTube.

Incidentally, why the title My Man Hadrian? Not a perfect being, so much power often creates issues. But he is considered 'one of the five good emperors' in many sources I read. But why I call him 'my man' is because of what we have in common - a love of  architecture. 

Hadrian was an amateur architect, designing some of the structures on the Villa Adriana complex - he loved his pumpkin domes, I read. And he also gets top marks because he commissioned two of the world's great gifts to architecture, the Pantheon (although some give credit to his adoptive father Emperor Trajan) and Hadrian's incomparable wall across England.

I wrote about my love affair with the Pantheon last January and again in April.

 Derek and Marjorie who introduced me to  Hadrian's wall

I'll do a post about Hadrian's wall at another time. In 1995 Denis and I visited Hadrian's wall with family living in nearby Carlisle. In 2019 we revisited a couple of favourite forts, and toured the massive excavations at Vindolanda. 

I'm speechless.