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Gardens along the sea and Sperlonga

by Egenia Salza Prina Ricotti

GARDEN OF THE MARITIME VILLAS AND SPERLONGA
Starting from the I cent. B.C beautiful maritime villas began to appear all along the Italic coasts. They were still amply influenced by the Hellenistic inspiration, and not only because Hellenistic were the works of art and the statues displayed in them, but particularly for the spirit that had presided their planning. In them the nature of the places had been exploited to the maximum and the villas were artistically inserted in the landscaping. Among them Sperlonga was certainly the most interesting example.
Of course this beautiful residence, set on the Latial coast, was an Italic building and therefore it still had its Italic characteristic, but to them it joined triumphant Hellenistic traits that were more evident in its open air spaces. To its Italic peristyle garden - quite a modest one - all the areas along the sea were studied with a Hellenistic spirit. Here a monumental double portico dominated the scene. Wide windows set among stucco coated masonry columns, opened in its wall and, across a very long and vast terrace, it looked toward the sea.
This was a typical motif in the maritime Italic villas, and, it is also found in Pliny the Younger’s Laurentine (see “Laurentino” in this site), the writer’s elegant residence proud of its very long cryptoporch, the wide windows looking toward the sea and, on its front, the beautiful violet perfumed terrace. As in the Laurentine also in Sperlonga the terrace must have been kept as a garden with a flowering border of violets. Violet, yes, but one has to always keep in mind that for ancient Romans “violets” were all kind of flowers and of all colors too, as pimpernels, anemones and maybe also real violets.
However as much as Sperlonga’s cryptoporch and terrace were extremely pleasant promenades, the most sensational part of Sperlonga’s villa was the attached grotto, a very large cavern that had been transformed in the most stunning Nymphaeum of all the antiquity. In the immense cavity of the mountain a fishpond, half of which stood in the open air while the other half penetrated under the rocky vault, ended in a perfectly round basin. Later on the opening of the grotto ruined on a water triclinium placed over a little island that stood there. This happened an evening when, interrupting his travel from Capri to Rome, emperor Tiberius was dining in it. Without this we probably would never have heard about this land slide, but being this mishap part of an emperor’s life it was accurately related in the histories of Tacitus and Suetonius.
Just in front of this original triclinium the cavern branched out in lesser grottoes. Prior of the landslide the first and north-eastern of them was completely covered by the mountain and only a rocky diaphragm, in which an arch to reach the principal cavern had been opened, divided them. In this minor grotto an oval basin was decorated by rustic niches that were probably used for illuminations in case of celebrations, festivities and also dinners,.
Further on in an ample branch of the cavern there was an oval masonry hall with a bench that ran all along its walls and, at its back, also a very nice room with three alcoves and a beautiful stucco ceiling.
Outstanding hellenistic statues were then exhibited in the cavern. The Scylla group was fixed on a pedestal set right in the middle of the round basin that, with its perfectly circular shape, probably represented the eddy of Cariddy’s at the center of which, for the legend, stood Scylla. Cariddi and Scilla, the two monsters joined in the myth and here joined in fact.
Then, in the cavern there was the most important of all the groups, the Polyphemus’ one. It stood toward the inner part of the cavern and on the bank of the round basin. At its centre there was the 5 m high colossus. Maybe the giant was here representin Etna standing high in front of the Scylla’s rock. Etna, the mighty Vulcan that menaced the sailors with his burning eye and threw big boulders against the passing boats. From the way in which Sperlonga’ grotto has been planned and done, and from how the different groups had been placed it is possible that what is here symbolized is Sicily and, exactly, the Messina’s strait with Etna on one side and Scylla and Cariddi on the other.
While Scylla stood in the middle of the basin, Polyphemus occupied the bank where a little and fragile background wall established his position by two curves following his right arm and leg. With Polyphemus were here all the other components of the group: Ulysses with his beautiful Hellenistc head and around him, the three companions helping him to blind the monster.
At sunset, the culminating point of the Roman dinner, the rays of the sun hit the marbles heroes and gave them life. The beauty of the statues, all most refined chef-doeuvre, the lights playing in the grotto, the warm caresses of the setting sun and the wavering reflections of the fishpond’s waters dancing over the dramatic scene contributed to create one of the most breathtaking and unforgettable spectacle of all times.
As a consequence of all this the Grotto of Sperlonga inspired other nympheaums and, in the Domitian’s Albana Villa, we find a miniature reproduction of Sperlonga’s one. Many other elements of the Sperlonga’s groups were also taken from them and set in other parks. Thus in many gardens we find these copies, sometime placed in flowerbeds, some times standing against the green edges of boxtree and some others in Nymphaeums, where a background of falling water gave them a kind of life. But now the spirit that animated those statues was different. They were used outside their original group and set in Imperial Roman gardens, not in Hellenistic ones. The tastes had changed. The gardens had become more regular and were now framed in the architectonic planning. Gardens had moved from the landscaping style to the architectonic one that then culminated in the triumph of the great imperial residences.

Bibliography
Scientific popularization
- E. SALZA PRINA RICOTTI, Dossier: I giardini nell'antichità in Archeo nº 69, November, pp. 50-97

Academic papers
- E. SALZA PRINA RICOTTI, “Sistemazione paesaggistica del fronte a mare e giardini nelle ville marittime di epoca romana” in "Giornate di studio in occasione del 250º anniversario degli Scavi di Stabia" . 137-169
- E. SALZA PRINA RICOTTI - “Il gruppo di Polifemo a Sperlonga - Problemi di sistemazione”. in Rend. Pont. Acc. Rom. di Arch., Vol. XLII, 1968-1970, pp.118-134, plates 1-3, figg. 5-9.
- E. SALZA PRINA RICOTTI – “La villa laurentina di Plinio il Giovane: un’ennesima ricostruzione” in Lunario romano 1983, Rome, December 1982, pp. 229-251.
- E. SALZA PRINA RICOTTI “La c.d. Villa Magna: il Laurentinum di Plinio il Giovane” in Atti Acc. Naz. dei Lincei, Anno CCCLXXXI, 1984, Serie ottava, Vol. XXXIX, fasc. 7-12 (July-December 1984),pp.339-358.
- E. SALZA PRINA RICOTTI, “La Villa Magna a Grotte di Piastra in Castelporziano I, Iª Campagna di scavo e di restauro 1984”, in Castelporziano 1, Rome 1985, pp. 53-66.