Explore two villas built over a thousand years apart in this sleepy county town outside of Rome.
Nineteen miles (30 km) north-east of Rome is the hilltop town of Tivoli, Italy. Even back in Ancient Roman days Tivoli was a popular place to escape the heat (and probably smell) of the summer of the capitol city as it is today. The whole of Lazio (the region around Rome) was surrounded with farms and countryside villas for rich landowners to escape to. That didn’t change over the millennia. Even during the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance, popes, dukes and cardinals built fine villas and even a castle here. Tivoli was a place to be for over a thousand years. The city still brings crowds from Rome today, although for a different reason, not exactly to escape the heat, but to see its wonders.
Tivoli is a place you can spend a day and not see everything, especially in winter when it gets dark early. Somethings are also closed in winter. So, I focused on two main attractions with my visit, Hadrian’s Villa and Villa d’Este.
The hilltop town of Tivoli.
Hadrian’s Villa is actually located a bit outside of Tivoli in Villa Adriana. However, it is easily reachable by bus from Tivoli or Rome. (Much easily in the summer months than in the winter. More direct routes.) Hadrian’s Villa was built for, you guessed it, the Ancient Roman Emperor Hadrian (famous for that giant wall in England) as a country retreat from Rome. Construction started around 125 CE and Hadrian moved in around 128. He made the villa is main residence, preferring it over his palace in Rome.
Path from the entrance to the ruins. Sooooo peaceful in the morning.
The villa was occasionally used by several emperors after him, such as Antonius Pius (138-161), Marcus Aurelius (161-180), Caracalla (211-217) and a few others. The villa fell out of use in the 4th century and was robbed for building material. The statues disappeared overtime to be used for lime. The remaining statues became art in local homes in the 16th century, later to be spread throughout museums around Europe.
Hadrian’s Villa is absolutely huge. I got lost a few times and I lost my traveling companion at least once. I didn’t see it all because we had another destination. You seriously can spend all day here.
Model of Hadrian’s Villa in a small exhibit space. The villa is so big, even the model is hard to fit in one photo.
The Pecile, a large peristyled garden that had storage and servant rooms at one end. That area would have been behind me in this photo.
The Three Exedras opens onto the Pecile. It was a grand entryway and gateway between different sections of the complex, like the Stadium Garden for instance.
The most famous feature of Hadrian’s Villa is the Canopus, a long colonnaded pool. Most of the colonnade is gone now, but it did extend the entire length of the pool.
Most of the colonnade featured normal pillars except one section that had a group of statues instead, four Caryatids and two Sileni. The former are figures from a temple in Athens, the latter from a theater.
At the end of the pool is the Serapeum, a summer dining area with a nymphaeum. A nymphaeum (the back apse) is a grotto or shrine dedicated to nymphs usually with some sort of water feature. (Check out the video at the end of the post for a really good idea what this would have looked like!)
The Large Baths (or Great Thermal Baths). Let’s just say that room was huge.
Hot room from the Heliocaminus Baths. There are at least three baths that I found in this complex. Soooo many.
A bit of surviving ceiling with paint still on it in the so-called Winter Palace.
The Room of the Doric Pillars. It may have been used for imperial meetings and audiences and have been roofed over.
The Piazza d’Oro was one of the more luxurious areas of the villa, with a lovely garden in the center and entertainment rooms around it, including a library.
One of the most unique features of Hadrian’s Villa is the Maritime Theater. It is this weird “island” of rooms that resembled an Roman house, complete with an atrium in the center, along with a latrine, bedroom and dining room. It is thought that the complex was dedicated for Hadrian’s personal use. Okay…. so, he basically made himself a little island with a house on it in the middle of his mansion. Weird.
The Hospitalia was a two-story building with 10 guest rooms on the first floor, and probably the same number on the second. The rooms were decorated with frescoes and lovely mosaics. Each room could have fit three beds. More honored guests probably had nicer accommodations.
Large room outdoor room, part of the Pavilion of Tempe, near the Hospitalia. I just like the floor.
The last room, the Philosophers’ Hall, which is next to the Maritime Theater, but because of the confusing layout of the villa, it was one of the last stops. It was a rectangular hall with a very, very tall ceiling, connecting the Pecile, where we started to the Maritime Theater. So, I basically just made a giant circle all morning. If Hadrian was on his weird island, he could have easily used this hall for meetings.
That’s it for Hadrian’s Villa. We grabbed a bus and headed to Tivoli proper and grabbed a late lunch of pizza-by-the-slice (proper Italian fast food). Next stop, Villa d’Este.
Villa d’Este is a splendid 16th century villa in the middle of Tivoli, with an Italian Renaissance garden so wonderful that it is a UNESCO world heritage site. The villa is the brainchild of Cardinal Ippolito II d’Este (1509-1572). As the governor of Tivoli, he was given the official residence located in a former convent. It wasn’t big enough for the cardinal’s staff, but it did offer a fantastic view of the countryside. Therefore, a new villa and terraced garden was born (after robbing a lot of the marble from nearby Hadrian’s Villa, including some of the sculptures).
Subsequent owners of the villa changed the gardens a bit. Trees were planted. Ancient sculptures were sold off to cover debts. The villa and gardens finally were passed into the hands of the Italian state in 1922 and the site was opened as a museum.
The first of many fountains you will see is right in the entrance in the courtyard, which used to the cloister of the convent. Did I mention that the garden is famous for its fountains?
The Fountain of Neptune below the Fountain of the Organ, which plays a weird little song. The pond is the Peschiere or fishpond.
The Oval Fountain, very original in the naming on this one. It’s my favorite one actually.
One Hundred Fountains. Water comes out of animal faces, some are monkeys, others I can’t tell. Some of the fountains are just weird.
The gardens were built on a very steep slope, very steep.
Fountain of the Dragons, looking up towards the villa.
A little hidden away fountain by an exit gate, Fountain of Venus.
I only showed maybe a third of the fountains in the gardens. Just soooo many. Now let’s move inside to the villa. You enter the villa through the upper floors, and then descend to the lower floors to reach the garden. It’s the lower floors that were the entertainment rooms of the home.
The Hall of the Fountain was used by the Cardinal as a reception room, a perfect one since it has garden access. It’s the biggest room on this floor.
The Hall of the Fountain of course got its name for this fountain. There are even several fountains throughout the villa.
The First Tiburtine Hall. The fresco illustrates stories from mythology and history from the local region.
The ridiculous ceiling. All the ceilings on this floor were outlandishly done like this.
The Cardinal’s private chapel.
The villa has a few more fountains and a few more outlandishly painted rooms on this floor. The top floor is much more subdued with simple decorations. The garden closes early in winter and we spent much of our visit there. The visit to the villa was a bit of a rush, but it was open much later, but by then we were exhausted and ready to rush to the train station to catch the next train. Tivoli has more gardens to offer, but not everything is open in winter so do your research before visiting! But Hadrian’s Villa and Villa d’Este are always open year-round!
Check out this short video on what Hadrian’s villa may have looked like in its prime. It features a few things I showed here and some I didn’t get a chance to see because the villa is HUGE!
Also check out the Digital Hadrian’s Villa Project. It helped me with this post tremendously.
Check out my next update where I will explore the Tuscan city of Siena!
or
Start at the beginning of my Malta/Italy adventure!
