To make an important discovery is always an unexpected also if pleasant feeling. Usually the subject of your research is something you are sure to have completely examined and you are sure there could not be anything new to find out. As I have already told this is not always so and it was proved by me, when being 80 year old, I found Antinous’ tomb in Villa Adriana. I was quite shocked. Then I began to analyze my discovery ( read “Antinous’ tomb, in this site).At this moment my hypothesis had been verified, the excavations had proved that here, surrounded by a garden, was what would have been the tomb of the unhappy young man. Would have been because this tomb was never finished. The only thing that was completed was its garden with the two marble temples, the enclosure, the white marble basins and even the platform where Antinous’ shrine would have been built. Thus I began to reconstruct the garden. Luckily it was possible to do so with the best exactness, because here as in all Villa Adriana the tufa’s platform was nearly surfacing and all the garden’s arrangement had to be cut in the stone: trenches for the edges, pits for the bushes and canalizations for the basins and for irrigation. We find all this done with the usual precision of Hadrian’s works and this clears to us how the garden was made.From our researches we knew that at Hadrian’s death in the 138 A.D. the garden with its temples and its enclosure had been completed. From the soil analysis we also learned that it did survive until the end of the Empire because the content of lead of its area was the same we find in the Canopus’ and in the other monumental part of the Imperial Residence which were created on the plots of never irrigated a land that were acquired by Hadrian, and that were tended up by his successors.Obviously then, with the Barbarian invasions and the abandon of the Imperial Residence, this place stood exposed to all the pillages that ruined all the Roman’s monuments. For centuries the local people considered Villa Adriana as an enormous quarry where they went to refurnish their churches of columns and their floors with luxurious slabs of marbles. They also took bricks for their buildings and made lime, which they obtained burning in their kilns fragments of statues or marble of the architectonic moldings. They thought it was very nice to do so, because starting from the VIII cent. A.D. the Church requested all believers to destroy all the beautiful “pagan” works of art, besides this “ worthy action”, helped them to obtain the best lime possible for their mortar.After the passage or this horde of locusts the only things that were left to Villa Adriana were its naked walls and not even all of them, because in 1650, when the Jesuits decided to make there a thriving vineyard, they completely cleaned the area and demolished all the walls that were still standing in Antinous’ garden. The only things that were left untouched were the bases of the two temples. To destroy those large masses of conglomerate would have taken lot of work. Thus they were left there where they stood, and low on the ground as they were, they were treated exactly as if the they were part of the tufa’s platform.Today on this rocky plain, left naked by an exaggerate excavation we can see all that happened here, from the big mass of marble fragments prepared for the kilns and that was left there by the local people who now had more than enough lime, and never burned them, to the long furrow traced in the tufa platform traced by the holy Fathers in such a way as to held rain water in them, keep always humid the soil and by capillarity irrigate the young vines.In the middle of all those scars, Hadrian’s cuts, straight and well made, catched the eyes and showed to us the garden’s plan all centered around the two temples set the one in front of the other and around which ran a carpet of big white reserve’s mosaic. Two deep trench surrounded the temples on three of their sides and in them edges of box-tree cut in form were planted. The edges stopped in line with the two temples’ front just were the first two “cappuccine” - brick underground canals that ran across the central platform - nearly skimmed the temples’ bases. Going on in line with the trenches and just alternated with the “cappuccine” there were four pits. For me it is highly probable that they were not made for new edges, but, maybe, to vary the garden’s appearance with some decorative plants and flowering bushes, as roses or oleanders.This was the tomb’s garden. Around ran the enclosure, a pleasant architectonic arrangement, very destroyed, it is true, but still possible to be reconstructed. On its south side, there was half of the height of a sustaining wall that had been put there to hold the terrain when, to create a horizontal platform for the garden, Hadrian had to cut the tufa’s platform, which, slanted, ran from south toward the Pecile terrace, a wall that was saved also in the 1600/1700 when, to plant the famous vineyard all the other structures were razed to the ground. It was necessary to protect the field from all the land slides.. At the centre of this wall a door that by mean of a stair allowed to reach the higher part of the land cut the wall in two. At the two parts of the wall’s feet ran two 1.20 wide white marble basins. Over them a long row of niches spurted water in them. Two other white marble basins were set at the two sides of the steps that led to the 1 m higher than the garden level hemicyclic platform. We know quite well as this side of the garden was arranged. It was not so for the opposite one. To begin with going on the tufa’s platform, that was very slanted, went deeper and deeper, while the layer of soil became higher and higher. Then the part of trench that instead of being cut in the tufa was excavated in the soil could not be found any more. Anyway, as the initial cut in the tufa was very clear, it pointed out to the fact that the trench went exactly as the one which circled around the opposite temple. For the rest the only thing that was left of the north side enclosure were its foundations. Of course here there never had been any basins, because if they had been there we would have found their bottoms. Of course if there were no basins, also niches spurting water in them could never have existed.In a better state we find the wall in which the Tomb’s door stood. 50 cm height of it had been saved and it went on the eastern side of the garden along the access lanes leading to Villa Adriana’s Great Entrance Hall. This wall, which constituted the Tomb’s monumental front, was decorated on the two sides of the entrance by a row of niches, each one of them set in the thickness of the wall that divided among them the other side ones. Then this elaborate decoration stopped leaving 6 m of straight wall on both sides of the entrance door, spaces evidently planned for setting here some important decorative element.What had been put here? This was the question that I tried to solve and the answer came when I remembered of two work of arts very adapted and proportioned to the space left for them: the two Telamons in the form of Antinous as an Egyptian god that were now set at the two sides of the entrance of the “Sala rotonda” in the Vatican Museums. Is it certain that no document exists for these two statues which for the first time in the 1500 appeared at the two sides of the door of Tivoli’s archbishopric see, and nothing tells us where and when they were found, but we know that the pillage of the art works, which started at the times of the Borgia’s Papacy with the Odeon excavations, was in full stride. At the beginning of this century many statues had already been taken away and set in other contests, and nobody ever cared to document the facts. . Therefore I am ready to assert that the two Telamons so similar to the statue of Antinoo-Osiris, dressed as him and set in the same pose, were not only found at Villa Adriana, but that they were excavated in the same area where the Egyptian statues had been found, and that not only they made part of the tomb’s decoration but, more than that, they were one of its fundamental parts. For this I suppose that they had to be put at the two sides of the tomb’s entrance door and there lent to the two 6 m long tracts. The Telamons were not the only works of art found there. As we have already seen here were found 20 black marble Egyptian statues, obviously also them were part of the monument’s decoration. The fact that those statues were found in the area’s excavations confirm the fact that even before Hadrian’s death the garden had been completed. As no one with a sound mind, would have left precious statues in the middle of a crowded building yard. where they would easily been broken and damaged, the works had to be finished. It is in fact a good norm that until the completing of the works all the decorations should be kept in storage, just as in storage were the statues of Antinous-Osiris and Harpocrates, that had to be put in the unfinished shrine. They were put in one of the Cento Camerelle room and there they stood until the Michilli’s brothers, the proprietors of the lot didn’t find them.But the Telamons were not the only works of art that emerged here. We know that also 20 statues of Egyptian gods, goddesses and priests have been found in the excavations. Twenty statues and in the long entrance wall there were just twenty places for them. Here there are the row of niches 1.20 wide and 60 cm deep, perfectly apt to host statues which were only 1.50m high. Obviously, as just on the other side of a path which from the outside gave direct access to the tomb and ran along the 1 m high low wall of stone decorated by moldings following the lanes which led to Villa Adriana, to be better seen the statues had to be put on marble pedestals.
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To make an important discovery is always an unexpected also if pleasant feeling. Usually the subject of your research is something you are sure to have completely examined and you are sure there could not be anything new to find out. As I have already told this is not always so and it was proved by me, when being 80 year old, I found Antinous’ tomb in Villa Adriana. I was quite shocked. Then I began to analyze my discovery ( read “Antinous’ tomb, in this site).
At this moment my hypothesis had been verified, the excavations had proved that here, surrounded by a garden, was what would have been the tomb of the unhappy young man. Would have been because this tomb was never finished. The only thing that was completed was its garden with the two marble temples, the enclosure, the white marble basins and even the platform where Antinous’ shrine would have been built. Thus I began to reconstruct the garden. Luckily it was possible to do so with the best exactness, because here as in all Villa Adriana the tufa’s platform was nearly surfacing and all the garden’s arrangement had to be cut in the stone: trenches for the edges, pits for the bushes and canalizations for the basins and for irrigation. We find all this done with the usual precision of Hadrian’s works and this clears to us how the garden was made.
From our researches we knew that at Hadrian’s death in the 138 A.D. the garden with its temples and its enclosure had been completed. From the soil analysis we also learned that it did survive until the end of the Empire because the content of lead of its area was the same we find in the Canopus’ and in the other monumental part of the Imperial Residence which were created on the plots of never irrigated a land that were acquired by Hadrian, and that were tended up by his successors.
Obviously then, with the Barbarian invasions and the abandon of the Imperial Residence, this place stood exposed to all the pillages that ruined all the Roman’s monuments. For centuries the local people considered Villa Adriana as an enormous quarry where they went to refurnish their churches of columns and their floors with luxurious slabs of marbles. They also took bricks for their buildings and made lime, which they obtained burning in their kilns fragments of statues or marble of the architectonic moldings. They thought it was very nice to do so, because starting from the VIII cent. A.D. the Church requested all believers to destroy all the beautiful “pagan” works of art, besides this “ worthy action”, helped them to obtain the best lime possible for their mortar.
After the passage or this horde of locusts the only things that were left to Villa Adriana were its naked walls and not even all of them, because in 1650, when the Jesuits decided to make there a thriving vineyard, they completely cleaned the area and demolished all the walls that were still standing in Antinous’ garden. The only things that were left untouched were the bases of the two temples. To destroy those large masses of conglomerate would have taken lot of work. Thus they were left there where they stood, and low on the ground as they were, they were treated exactly as if the they were part of the tufa’s platform.
Today on this rocky plain, left naked by an exaggerate excavation we can see all that happened here, from the big mass of marble fragments prepared for the kilns and that was left there by the local people who now had more than enough lime, and never burned them, to the long furrow traced in the tufa platform traced by the holy Fathers in such a way as to held rain water in them, keep always humid the soil and by capillarity irrigate the young vines.
In the middle of all those scars, Hadrian’s cuts, straight and well made, catched the eyes and showed to us the garden’s plan all centered around the two temples set the one in front of the other and around which ran a carpet of big white reserve’s mosaic. Two deep trench surrounded the temples on three of their sides and in them edges of box-tree cut in form were planted. The edges stopped in line with the two temples’ front just were the first two “cappuccine” - brick underground canals that ran across the central platform - nearly skimmed the temples’ bases. Going on in line with the trenches and just alternated with the “cappuccine” there were four pits. For me it is highly probable that they were not made for new edges, but, maybe, to vary the garden’s appearance with some decorative plants and flowering bushes, as roses or oleanders.
This was the tomb’s garden. Around ran the enclosure, a pleasant architectonic arrangement, very destroyed, it is true, but still possible to be reconstructed. On its south side, there was half of the height of a sustaining wall that had been put there to hold the terrain when, to create a horizontal platform for the garden, Hadrian had to cut the tufa’s platform, which, slanted, ran from south toward the Pecile terrace, a wall that was saved also in the 1600/1700 when, to plant the famous vineyard all the other structures were razed to the ground. It was necessary to protect the field from all the land slides.. At the centre of this wall a door that by mean of a stair allowed to reach the higher part of the land cut the wall in two. At the two parts of the wall’s feet ran two 1.20 wide white marble basins. Over them a long row of niches spurted water in them. Two other white marble basins were set at the two sides of the steps that led to the 1 m higher than the garden level hemicyclic platform.
We know quite well as this side of the garden was arranged. It was not so for the opposite one. To begin with going on the tufa’s platform, that was very slanted, went deeper and deeper, while the layer of soil became higher and higher. Then the part of trench that instead of being cut in the tufa was excavated in the soil could not be found any more. Anyway, as the initial cut in the tufa was very clear, it pointed out to the fact that the trench went exactly as the one which circled around the opposite temple. For the rest the only thing that was left of the north side enclosure were its foundations. Of course here there never had been any basins, because if they had been there we would have found their bottoms. Of course if there were no basins, also niches spurting water in them could never have existed.
In a better state we find the wall in which the Tomb’s door stood. 50 cm height of it had been saved and it went on the eastern side of the garden along the access lanes leading to Villa Adriana’s Great Entrance Hall. This wall, which constituted the Tomb’s monumental front, was decorated on the two sides of the entrance by a row of niches, each one of them set in the thickness of the wall that divided among them the other side ones. Then this elaborate decoration stopped leaving 6 m of straight wall on both sides of the entrance door, spaces evidently planned for setting here some important decorative element.
What had been put here? This was the question that I tried to solve and the answer came when I remembered of two work of arts very adapted and proportioned to the space left for them: the two Telamons in the form of Antinous as an Egyptian god that were now set at the two sides of the entrance of the “Sala rotonda” in the Vatican Museums. Is it certain that no document exists for these two statues which for the first time in the 1500 appeared at the two sides of the door of Tivoli’s archbishopric see, and nothing tells us where and when they were found, but we know that the pillage of the art works, which started at the times of the Borgia’s Papacy with the Odeon excavations, was in full stride. At the beginning of this century many statues had already been taken away and set in other contests, and nobody ever cared to document the facts.
. Therefore I am ready to assert that the two Telamons so similar to the statue of Antinoo-Osiris, dressed as him and set in the same pose, were not only found at Villa Adriana, but that they were excavated in the same area where the Egyptian statues had been found, and that not only they made part of the tomb’s decoration but, more than that, they were one of its fundamental parts. For this I suppose that they had to be put at the two sides of the tomb’s entrance door and there lent to the two 6 m long tracts.
The Telamons were not the only works of art found there. As we have already seen here were found 20 black marble Egyptian statues, obviously also them were part of the monument’s decoration. The fact that those statues were found in the area’s excavations confirm the fact that even before Hadrian’s death the garden had been completed. As no one with a sound mind, would have left precious statues in the middle of a crowded building yard. where they would easily been broken and damaged, the works had to be finished. It is in fact a good norm that until the completing of the works all the decorations should be kept in storage, just as in storage were the statues of Antinous-Osiris and Harpocrates, that had to be put in the unfinished shrine. They were put in one of the Cento Camerelle room and there they stood until the Michilli’s brothers, the proprietors of the lot didn’t find them.
But the Telamons were not the only works of art that emerged here. We know that also 20 statues of Egyptian gods, goddesses and priests have been found in the excavations. Twenty statues and in the long entrance wall there were just twenty places for them. Here there are the row of niches 1.20 wide and 60 cm deep, perfectly apt to host statues which were only 1.50m high.
Obviously, as just on the other side of a path which from the outside gave direct access to the tomb and ran along the 1 m high low wall of stone decorated by moldings following the lanes which led to Villa Adriana, to be better seen the statues had to be put on marble pedestals. villa adriana gay emperor gay rome gay guided tours gay civitavecchia shore excursions homosexual ancient roman
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