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Villa Adriana map

by Eugenia Salza Prina Ricotti

What has been left by Ligorio, Contini and Piranesi and who draw the first map

When the study of Villa Adriana was offered to the author of this research the first thing that she did was to look out what had been done and found by her predecessors. She was particularly interested in the works of those architects who had surveyed it and traced their plan: Ligorio, Contini and Piranesi. Therefore she began to study the documents which existed at the Vatican Library: here there were three manuscripts all ascribed to Ligorio. Both of them reported what Ligorio had found and seen in Villa Adriana but the first one of them entitled Descrittione della superba et magnificentissima Villa Hadriana (Barb. Lat. 4342, f. 48 r.; Barb. Lat., 5219 f. 137 v. ) which for brevity sake is here called Descrittione, was the most exact in reporting the reconnaissance of the place.
A second one which for brevity sake has been here called Trattato (Vat. Lat. 5295, ff.28 r.; Barb. Lat. 4849 ff. 29 r.) reported more recent news about Villa Adriana’s reconnaissance, but there were also many mistakes which could never had been made by Ligorio. This text looked as being an updating of the Descrittione written by someone who had been left at Villa Adriana to add the news of the last discoveries to the old text. Maybe this had been a task given by Ligorio to some man from Ippolito d’Este’s retinue who had to follow the works while, having him received the charge of St. Peter’s “fabbrica”, he was obliged to leave Tivoli and go to Rome.
From what this man wrote about the “pozzolana” quarry which was connected with the Great Trapeze and which, looking at the maze of its tunnels entering from time to time in great cavities, he took to be a terrific representation of the after life domains, proved that he could never had been an architect because any man connected with buildings would have recognized it for what it really was.
Then there was a third manuscript which long title is here shortened as the Dechiaratione. It was the Barb. Lat. 4804, a manuscript entitled “Dechiaratione generale della Pianta della Villa Hadriana nella quale le lettere maiuscole dinotano la divisione fatta da noi di tutte le sue parti in vari capitoli nei quali sono contrassegnati con numeri tutte le parti e i membri principali delle fabbriche ed altri luoghi contenuti e dichiarati in ciasche di un capitolo.” it was exactly what you expect to find to illustrate a map and in the Vatican Library also that manuscript had been ascribed to Ligorio. This of course seemed to confirm that, as the famous German archaelogist Kircher had declared, the d’Este’s architect had really made the survey and drawn the first Villa Adriana’s plan. Then this plan was sought everywhere but with no luck. It was however noticed that already a little time after Ligorio death, Antonino Del Re, the man to whom the study of Villa Adriana had been entrusted and therefore had received all Ligorio’s documents wrote "Molti sono stati vaghi di trovare qualche descrittione o disegno di questa Villa & non se n'è trovata altra che una descrittione di Pirro Ligorio huomo più antiquario che buono historico & erudito in potere di alcuni heredi di un Cortegiano della fel.ma memoria di Hippolito d'Este, detto di Ferrara, Governatore perpetuo di Tivoli, fatta da detto Pirro & indirizzata a detto Cardinale. Accennò in detta descrittione il Ligorio volerne dar disegno a detto Card. Hippolito, ma non si è trovato..." and later on, commenting what he was reading in the Descrittione, he added"......& offeriva al Cardinal Ippolito suo Signore raccorre in disegno la pianta di essa il meglio che si fusse potuto il qual disegno si crede esser fatto & in potere degli Heredi di detto Cardinale o smarrito dai Ministri." This confirm the fact that already at the end of the XVI century the plan was nowhere to be found.
Moreover very odd was the fact that never in the Descrittione or the Trattato Ligorio used his plan to state where stood the places of whom he was speaking and used only vague affirmations like....... in un poggio che sta più in basso........; ........ad oriente.......; .......ad austro......, and so on creating muddles in his readers’ minds and making very difficult for them to recognize the part of Villa Adriana which he was describing.
The problem began to be solved when in the text of the Dechiaratione we found people whom Ligorio could never have known because they had lived a century after his death. At this point we knew that the plan had not been made by Ligorio, but it was necessary to find who did it. For the moment we only knew that it had been made by a XVII cent. Architect. Therefore we tried to find out who was working in Villa Adriana at this time. We knew that his name was Francesco Contini who had been charged to study the hadrianic complex by the Cardinal Francesco Barberini and we also knew that he had drawn a map. He employed two years to accomplish this task and dedicated his work to the Cardinal who published it as a large atlas a book which was accurately studied word by word and which lead to the conclusion that this plan was not a copy of a precedent one made by Ligorio. If this had been case, in his dedication to the Cardinal he could never had written
“…….. Tabulam hanc privatum fructum laboris sui publicam facit …… »
Moreover confronting the text printed in the big atlas with the one reported by the Dechiaratione, this proved to be the one which had been employed by the publisher: on the last page of the manuscript there was the Imprimatur dated the seventeen of January 1665 and conceded by an autograph of Giacinto Libelli, Master of the Holy Palaces. Furthermore on the manuscript’s pages there still were the ink blots and the marks made by the typographers to sign the divisions of the printed text. However only few years passed from the moment Contini map had been published that the same one was reprinted by Kircher as Ligorio’s one in his Thesaurus.
It is clear that Kircher could copy it only from the one in the big atlas of Cardinal Barberini, which, as we read, was not “venale”. Thus he could only have received it as a gift and it is also evident that either he didn’t read Contini’s dedication to the Cardinal or that he chose to ignore it. Yet the dedication was clear,
“Eminentissimo e Reverendissimo Signore e Padrone Colendissimo.
mi accinsi prontamente all'Opera, animato più dell'ardore di servirla che atterrito dall'impresa molto malagevole. Mi conferii nel luogo: osservai quel sito essere un colle circondato da due valli di circuito di sei miglia e viddi la maggior parte di quelle anticaglie si fattamente atterrate e coperte dalle ruine che non si scorgevano i loro fondamenti, anzi la più parte di esse erano sopraffatte da macchie foltissime e spinose. Tali asprezze mi palesarono le difficoltà che avrei trovato nel ridurle in Pianta. Non mi sgomentai nondimeno tanto mi premeva l'accreditarmi appresso al mondo col palesarmi d'ahuer servito a V.E.. Cominciai a far cavare terra per trovare i fondamenti, feci recidere gli intoppi che mi impedivano e più volte calai in vari pozzi et aperture che scopersi in quelli scoscesi e per quelle vigne. Questa diligenza mi ha poi fatto scoprire alcune strade sotterranee per le quali si va al coperto da un luogo all'altro della Villa come si vedono disegnate nella pianta che finalmente ho levato con quell'esattezza che ho potuto rispetto al luogo reso ormai dal tempo in ogni parte manchevole. Gradiscala V.E. anzi ricevala per Sua essendo nata dal suo benignissimo cenno, il quale mi ha fatto superare in essa le difficoltà che parevano insuperabili, degnandosi di riconoscere nella medesima la divota servitù che Le professo.
There were no doubts on who did the plan, but Kircher, obviously sure that the Thesarus’ readers would more appreciate a map by the famous Ligorio, took Contini’s plan and on the place where the name of its author was written (Francisco Contini Deli. Baldassar Morone sculpsit), he put an elaborate scroll with putti, nymphs and every kind of divinities all dancing around the following statement: Villae celeberrimae ab Adriano Caesare in Agro Tyburtino extructae vera et exactissima Ichnographia ab Pyrrho Ligorio olim postea a Francisco Contini recognita et descripta jussu Eminentissimi Francisci Card. Barberini a declaration with which he confined Contini in the role of a simple draftman. Surely it is from here that the mistake on who made Villa Adriana’s plan was born and went on for the following centuries.
To seal it was a 1751 edition of Villa Adriana’s plan, As it was smaller and easier to handle it was the one more quoted by all the archaeologists who wrote about the hadrianic creation The book was entitled
Pianta della Villa Tiburtina di Adriano Cesare già da Pirro Ligorio rinomatissimo Architetto ed Antiquario disegnata e descritta, dapoi da Francesco Contini Architetto diligentissimamente riveduta e data alla luce.
This finished Contini. Three century passed before an inquisitive scholar discovered what had happened and published who had been the author of Villa Adriana’s map, a simple architect “a cui tanto premeva l’accreditarsi appresso il mondo”; a man who not only had to see his work stolen, but whom Kircher described as a simple draftman.


Bibliography
E. SALZA PRINA RICOTTI - “Villa Adriana in Pirro Ligorio e Francesco Contini” in Atti Acc. Naz. Dei CCCLXXI 1984 Serie VIII, Vol.XVII, 1, pp. 4-47 Plates. I – IV.
E. SALZA PRINA RICOTTI - Villa Adriana: il sogno di un imperatore, L’Erma di Bretschneider, Rome, 2001.