Part 21 (1/2)

The ancient grand entrance to the grounds was at the north-western end of the ruins, on the road towards Tibur, about a quarter of a mile beyond the Ponte Lucano. It seems to have consisted of two large pedestals of white marble, between which the carriage-road pa.s.sed, and which were pierced with arched pa.s.sages for the footways on each side. One of these is still traceable in the Vigna Gentili, and has the remains of a bas-relief upon it, while the other has been destroyed, and its corresponding bas-relief placed in the Villa Albani at Rome. This gateway has been imitated by the architect of the gateway at the old Villa Borghese. It is erroneously called a tomb by Piranesi and Ligorio (see Piranesi, Ant. Rom. tom. ii. tav. 39.)

The modern entrance to the ruins is at the gate of the Villa Braschi, and leads, through an avenue of cypress-trees, in a direction at right angles to the ancient road of approach. The avenue runs across a s.p.a.ce which was formerly a large quadrilateral court, 350 feet by 250 feet, surrounded with porticoes, attached to the theatre which stands a little to the side at the end of the avenue. The ancient road from the Ponte Lucano entered this court at the northern angle. The porticoes have now nearly disappeared, but part of them was remaining in Ligorio's time. They served the same purposes as the great colonnades behind the Theatres of Pompey and Balbus at Rome. The theatre is an oval building, sunk in the slope of the rising ground, the southern side containing the seats for spectators, and the northern being occupied by the orchestra and scena, which has a stage in the form of a long and narrow parallelogram. The plan corresponds exactly to the description by Vitruvius of a Greek theatre, and has, therefore, been called the Greek Theatre by the antiquaries. The Greeks had the orchestra wider and the actual stage much narrower than the Latins. Fragments of the travertine substructions of the scena still remain.

At some distance from this theatre, towards the east, and on the other side of the stream which runs along the Valley of Tempe, is the Latin Theatre, so called because the stage is much broader than that of the theatre just described. Externally it was surrounded with arched porticoes decorated, like the Theatre of Marcellus at Rome, with half-columns, There were probably two tiers of these arches, corresponding to the two divisions of seats. At the sides of the scena there were rooms for the use of the actors and for the machinery, and behind the scena are three rooms, probably corresponding to the three doors in the wall behind the stage.

The spectators' seats are turned towards the south, contrary to the rules of Vitruvius.

Between the two theatres there is a natural rise in the ground, which has been further heightened by the rubbish heaped upon the spot. The ruins here occupy a s.p.a.ce in the form of a trapezium, the largest side of which lies towards the north-west, and the shortest towards the south-west. They are now covered with modern buildings belonging to the Villa Braschi.

[Sidenote: Palaestra.]

The northern angle of these ruins shows the remains of a quadrilateral area surrounded by a covered way; and at the eastern angle there is another smaller court, surrounded with a portico, which has a double row of columns on the south-west side. This court is called the Palaestra by Ligorio and Piranesi, and it is supposed by them that the double portico was intended to be used in bad weather, when the athletes could not take their exercise in the unsheltered part of the court. Several statues of athletes, the colossal bust of Isis, now in the Museo Chiaromonti, and a statue of Ceres, were found here. There is a suite of rooms on the north-west side, intended, perhaps, for anointing-rooms, dust rooms, or sparring-courts. On the southern side there is a s.p.a.cious recess, with niches for statues, and attached to it are two large halls, in the form of a Greek cross, with small recesses at the sides, still retaining some marks of their ancient decorations in stucco and paint. The western angle of these ruins is conjectured to have been the site of the Xystus or covered Palaestra, a cloistered court, with a small square opening in the centre.

The ruins of the Nymphaeum lie on the south side of the Palaestra, and are connected with it by some chambers in which the stucco ornaments are still well preserved, and show what elegance of design and workmans.h.i.+p was bestowed even on the inferior parts of the villa. The curved basin of the Nymphaeum can be traced, though it is now overgrown with trees, and some of the niches still covered with stucco-work remain. The western side of one of the adjacent rooms, now used as a granary, is ornamented with niches, and Nibby thinks that this, which was the back of the Nymphaeum, was arranged so as to present a fountain supplied from the main pipe of the aqueduct. A similar arrangement, he says, may be seen in the remains of the Nymphaeum at Ampiglione. The great vase now at Warwick Castle came from Hadrian's Villa.

[Sidenote: Pcile.]

The Pcile lies to the south of the Nymphaeum. Between them is a reservoir and the remains of a fountain belonging to some building now entirely destroyed.

[Sidenote: Castra.]

The Athenian Pcile, of which this is an imitation, was a portico, the walls of which were decorated with the paintings of Polygnotus and Micon.

From the description given of it by Pausanias, the Athenian building appears to have been a portico with three sides at least, on one of which the battle of Oenoe was represented; on the second, and longest, the wars of Theseus against the Amazons, and the council of the Greek chiefs after the capture of Troy; and on the third, the battle of Marathon. It thus appears that one of the sides was much longer than the others; and this is the case with the ruin in the Villa of Hadrian, which has three sides, one, 640, on the north, and the others, on the east and west, each 240 feet in length. In Ligorio's time, 1550, a part of the porticoes, which were of brick, still remained, and some of the paintings corresponding to the Athenian pattern. It is not certain whether there was a similar wall and portico on the southern side. The wall of the northern side, which is the longest, still remains entire. It had a portico on the exterior, which terminated in two circular buildings; and in the centre was the princ.i.p.al entrance to the Pcile. The present entrance is modern. Both the eastern and western sides are slightly curved. The former contains a recess in the centre connected with the buildings behind. In the centre was an open reservoir of the same shape as the building surrounding it. On the western and southern sides the area of the Pcile is supported by substructions of masonry, against which are built a number of soldiers' rooms commonly called the Cento Camarelle. At the corner towards the south-west is a public washhouse, the tubes of which are still in good preservation.

Attached to the north-eastern corner of the Pcile is a fine building, in the form of a recess, with a semicircular niche turned towards the north, which, from the connection of the Stoic philosophy with the Stoa Pcile at Athens, has been called the Temple or School of the Stoics. It was possibly a hall for conversation and discussion.

[Sidenote: Library.]

Opening from this school, towards the north-east, is a building in the form of two concentric circles. Between the two circular parts there was a ca.n.a.l filled with water. This edifice was probably a swimming-bath. It appears to have been very highly ornamented with precious marbles and sculptures, most of which were taken to Rome by Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, and others to Tivoli by Cardinal Ippolito d'Este. The ruin commonly goes by the name of Theatrum Maritimum. A little farther to the north-east is a quadrilateral court, 200 feet wide, which was surrounded by a portico with Corinthian columns. On the north-west side of this court are the buildings usually supposed to belong to the library, and called the Greek and Latin libraries. They consist of a large number of rooms, more or less preserved, which may have been ante-rooms and chambers for the attendants and librarians. In the centre of the north-western side of the court is a well-preserved Nymphaeum, and on the north-east a long corridor with windows towards the south, which may be called a Helio Caminus, or room for basking in the sun, from its resemblance to the place so called by Pliny at his Laurentine villa. The ruins to the north-east of these, towards the Valley of Tempe, are thought by Nibby to be the remains of a suite of rooms belonging to one wing of the imperial palace, but their plan is very imperfectly known.

[Sidenote: Palace.]

The great ma.s.s of the imperial apartments were farther to the south-east, and were grouped round three large courts of dazzling magnificence. The most splendid of those, which afforded spoil for generations of plunderers, is called by Piranesi, from the richness of its decorative work, the Piazza d'Oro. Round the courts were numberless suites of rooms and several large recesses, a basilica, and a great hall now called Eco Corintio, formerly supported on vast granite columns, and cased with slabs of the choicest marbles.

[Sidenote: Stadium.]

The Stadium lies in a direction at right-angles to the southern side of the Pcile. The curved end is towards the south. Between the swimming-bath and the northern, or square end of the Stadium, are some bath-rooms for the use of the athletes, and on the west side stands a temple surrounded by a sacred enclosure formed by two vast semicircular walls ornamented with niches. On the eastern side are more rooms, and a magnificent quadrilateral covered way.

[Sidenote: Thermae.]

The Thermae stand between the Stadium and the Canopus. Numerous pipes and conduits for water, and also the arrangement of the various parts of the buildings, show that they have been rightly placed here. There seem to have been two distinct sets of bath-rooms, which are generally called the Terme virili and the Terme muliebri by the Italian antiquaries. The northern group of buildings is connected with the curved end of the Stadium, and contains the usual number of halls and an elliptical Laconic.u.m. The Laconic.u.m of the southern wing is circular, and is connected with a grand central hall similar to that in the Baths of Caracalla at Rome.

[Sidenote: Canopus.]

The place called Canopus lies to the south of the Thermae, and close to a ma.s.s of buildings now utterly destroyed, but in Piranesi's time thought to be a vestibule of the villa. The Canopus itself consists of an oblong pool of water or euripus excavated in the tufa, with a row of buildings on the west side, and a magnificent nymphaeum at the southern end, containing a great number of niches for statuary, and holes for jets of water. At the back of the Nymphaeum is a hall called the Sacrarium, in which it is supposed the statue of Serapis stood. A pa.s.sage of Strabo explains the idea which Hadrian had in forming this ca.n.a.l and Nymphaeum. He says that on the grand festival of Serapis, whose temple and oracle were at Canopus, 120 stadia from Alexandria, immense crowds of men and women go down to Canopus from Alexandria by boats on the ca.n.a.l, on the banks of which are pleasant houses of entertainment, where the wors.h.i.+ppers stop on their way to feast and dance.[158] The long, broad pool was intended to represent the Canopic ca.n.a.l, and the rooms ranged along the side, the houses of refreshment. A confirmation of this is derived from the character of the statues found here which were almost all those of Egyptian deities.

[Sidenote: Academy.]

To the south-west of the Canopus rise the immense substructions, 1755 feet in length, which supported the highest terrace on this side of the villa.

They extend as far as the square tower called Rocca Bruna in Ligorio's plan. This terrace and hill are supposed to have been the imitation of the Athenian Academy mentioned by Spartia.n.u.s. There was a gymnasium here, the ruins of which are to be seen in a vineyard at the southern end of the hill, consisting of a large court, a circular temple, and a large recess.

Beyond these there was a large square block of buildings supposed by Nibby to have been used for the students and masters of the School of Art maintained by Hadrian, and beyond this again was a s.p.a.cious Odeum or theatre for musical performances. The raised seat of this is now converted into a vineyard, but the stage is still well preserved. There were, as in the Odeum of Catania, two divisions, and at the top of the central division was a round temple dedicated to the presiding genius of the Odeum; just as in the Theatre of Pompey the Chapel of Victory stood above the seats.