Tivoil, Villa Adriana

(4 photos)
The Villa Adriana was one of the most magnificent creations of the imperial age. The largest and finest of the many Roman villas built in this area, Hadrian's Villa overlooks Rome and the sea, far to the west. The Villa was constructed with realistic architectural replicas of the buildings and places that had interested him most.

The Villa, covering an area of 600 acres, includes pavilions, an imperial palace, baths, libraries, theaters, large gardens dotted with statues, fountains and waterworks. Hadrian used curved walls, colonnades, and vaults to increase the complexity of his design. Archaeologists have not been able to identify all the buildings, and they still haven’t determined how each and every part of Villa Adriana was used.
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Centuries later, as was the custom throughout antiquity and into the middle ages, many of the architectural features were lost when people plundered the Villa and used the bricks and stones to build other buildings, including the Villa d’Este just a couple of miles away.

What an impressive beautiful summer palace it must have been. Something like this is difficult to describe, and the words we could use, wouldn’t do it justice. We consulted a variety of guide books before, during, and after our visit to Villa Adriana, and what we saw was far more spectacular than what we read.
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Two views of Fountain Canopus in Villa Adriana.

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