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Villa Adriana's imperial tricliniar areas: the Canopus

by Eugenia Salza Prina Ricotti

Imperial Tricliniar areas: The Canopus

From time to time ancient Roman emperors used to give banquets for many guests and invited to them a good number of their fellow citizens. To prepare these feasts was no problem at Rome where there were parade grounds and squares large enough to dispose in them the necessary tricliniar couches. But when these banquets were given in a place like Villa Adriana, Hadrian’s little capital, the question on how to dispose the couches and have the necessary space was not so easy to solve. The beauty of Villa Adriana’s perfect landscaping could not be marred by the creation of large and bare esplanades like the ones that existed in Rome where these areas, occupied only once or twice in an year, were left bare and unadorned for the rest.of the time. At Villa Adriana this could not be acceptable. Thus the banquet’s couches were disposed in the imperial residence’s large gardens. The guests resting in the shadow of the porticoes with their long rows of marble columns, encircled by the perfumed flowerbeds and looking at each other across the peaceful canals, could pass the time admiring the beauty of the architectures reflected in these sheets of water.
Glamorous places were these imperial tricliniar area, and if glamorous they appeared when the choreography and the colors of the banquet paraded through them, equally beautiful they looked when empty. Maybe one could get more pleasure from them in those solitary moment, when with no one around it was possible to calmly enjoy the porches, the pavilions, the nymphaea and the magical beauty of the water which on its surface duplicated all the architectures. Lots of water at Villa Adriana, and the clever way in which it was used as an architectonic material formed Villa Adriana’s more distinctive feature, and it was with water used in a plastic and monumental way, that Hadrian brought the scenographic Canopus to a triumph.
The Canopus, practically was the fulcrum of the imperial villa. It occupied a small valley set in the middle of two of its more important areas, to wit the Palace on the eastern side and the Academy on the western. Moreover the Canopus was in a certain way the hearth of the complex and in direct contact with the Great Entrance Hall, the imposing access to the imperial residence. In conclusion the Canopus was the area dedicated to guests of consequence. The valley in which it stood was crossed by a large canal which at its end was closed by the majestic exedra. Here a stibadium, a semicircular tricliniar couch, had been placed, and a small water triclinium, in which the mattresses for the guests were placed directly on the floor, stood between it and the canal..
Today the Canopus which until the 1956 and Aurigemma’s intervention was still covered by 2 m of earth, has been excavated, and all its tricliniar arrangements brought to light. Some time later the exedra’s apse was also examined discovering many tesserae, both of marble and of coloured glass. They had been part of a large, resplendent and many colored mosaic. Looking at it, anyone arriving to the Canopus must have stayed still, nonplussed by the same suggestion that now takes people when they find themselves confronted by the imposing mosaics apses of the byzanthine churches of Istanbul or of the Ravenna ones.
This stunning arrangement was flanked by two very nice pavilions in which we can still see the rises over which the tricliniar couches were set, but one of the more important element of the Canopus was the large and long gallery which opened at the center of the exedra. At its end, set very high, there was a niche that, in ancient times, had contained some sculpture under which water passed and fell down originating the euripus. In a first version this decorative canal had flowed quite low passing under the stibadium in such a way as to give to the guests lying on the couch the impression to dine over a beautiful river. Later on, probably after the return of Hadrian from his second travel around his empire, a wall of 1.60 m high was erected at the entrance to block the water and give it more depth. In the meantime at the centre of the gallery a platform of 4,40 m wide, 8,00 m long and 1.60 m high was built over the water level and it was for this reason that it had been necessary to elevate of 70 cm the base of the low niches which stood over the platform. As no door was created to give an access to this raised area and as it was completely surrounded by water, this platform, was an inaccessible place and thus it was left until the severian times when one of the niches was broken out and a little stairway leading to it was created.
This platform awoke the interest of many people and some hypothesis to explain why it had been built and how it was decorated were presented. A famous archaeologist, Andreae, proposed that a full size copy of the blinding of Polyphemus of Sperlonga had been set there, while the Egyptologist Grenier, accepting in toto the opinion of Kāhler who affirmed that Hadrian had buried his young lover at the Canopus, transformed all the nymphaeum in an Egyptian temple dedicated to Antinoos. Unfortunately we cannot accept neither one of this two hypothesis: not Andreae’s one which was based on the fact that the marble head of one of Ulysses’ companions had been found at Villa Adriana. Apart from the detail that it had been found in the XVIII cent. excavations at Pantanello, a marsh set at quite a distance from the Canopus, a single marble head doesn’t seem enough to justify the presence of an entire and gigantic group. Apart of this, the platform was only 4.40 m large and the only way to arrange Polyphemus over it would have been to set it along one of the walls, but also in this way the colossal monster would not be seen by anybody because the other protagonists of the group hid it and, more than this, as they were turned toward the giant, the only part that one could see of them were their backs.
As for Grenier’s reconstruction of the Canopus as a temple in honour of Antinoos, after my discovery of Hadrian’s lover’s tomb his theory has now been proved unfounded, and moreover, even before presenting it, it was destroyed by Aurigemma excavations which proved that the Canopus was not a temple, but a “coenatio” complete with tricliniar couches and latrines and that all the statues found in the canal were only Roman copies of Greek originals and not the Egyptians ones which, not caring to control where they had been excavated, he included in his reconstruction.
Thus I decided to advance another hypothesis, a more modest one but based on my knowledge of the ancient triclinia and banquet’s display. From this I knew that it was a custom in these occasion to put on view of the guests the more valuable treasures of the house, which in case of kings and emperors could be very important. It was obvious that the platform with no access and surrounded by water was inaccessible, thus it was an ideal place to show off the most precious vessels. In all the imperial triclinia there was some arrangements for doing this. In Kallissenos of Rhodes we read about Tolomeus Philadelphus tent in which a row of deep and large niches were set high, all around the coenatio, and in each one of them mythological banquets had been reconstructed: statues of gods and heroes dressed with the richest dresses and reclined on the most splendid tricliniar couches stood in front of tables charged of golden vessels, jugs and cups. Inspired and imitating the famous tent Nero built a similar arrangement creating the same kind of niches over the lateral “triclinia” of the Domus Aurea’s octagonal hall. Here Hadrian coming back from his stay at Alexandria, where probably he had seen Tolomeus Philadephus tent, decided to do something similar and solved his problem with the inaccessible platform. People participating to Hadrians banquets would admire the scene: the emperor, the more important members of his retinue and the guests of consequence deployed on the long “stibadium” with all the golden treasure as a background while the other important guests were set in the lateral pavilions. The tricliniar couches for the rest of the people were set on the canal’s two banks.
As the ancient Roman banquet began around three o clock in the afternoon of the two banks the western one was already in the shadow cast by the overhanging hill, while the eastern one was hit by the fiercest ray of the sun. But there a portico had been made to protect the people dining there and on this side alone. Hadrian was a very good administrator and also in Villa Adriana he never did any non necessary and expensive element.
However the place was splendid and splendid was also the scene that was presented to the guests. The emperor dominating the scene and all his subjects around. The emperor at the center of all his retinue and at his back this background reverberating golden glows. Everything was studied to concentrate the people’s attention on him. The scenography was perfect and added to the emperor importance and interest making him a superhuman being. However the Roman emperor was a god or at least a god he will became after his death and it was important that such he would be seen by his subjects and everything was made also to sustain the image of some emperor was not at the height of the expectations, To present to everybody this man and god around the emperors there always existed groups of people who managed to keep them always in the foreground.
To day this imperial tricliniar areas impress us with their impressiviness, but we must try to imagine them how they were at those times and represent them as they were during a banquet with their walls still lined by precious marbles their vaults covered by glittering mosaics, with flower garlands hanged among the marble columns, with the mattresses of the tricliniar couches covered by purple, with the mass of guests with their special light and many colored banqueting dresses. Young and beautiful servants turned in the tricliniar area bringing large trays and then prepared the drinks for the symposium. Big cauldrons furnished hot water to dilute the wine, but there was snow for whom preferred it iced Snow taken in winter time from the mountains. Wrapped in big bunches of straw first, then in woolen clothes it was taken back to the plain and for the rest of the year preserved in special deposits.
The most splendid of those deposits were Villa Adriana’s ones. Dug in the tufa they presented a series of gallery set horizontally at both sides of a service canals which had a concave bottom o let the fusion water get out. In the meantime the snow stored in the lateral galleries was sealed with straw and bundle of hay. Due to the fact that one began to use snow by only one of the galleries at a tima, the other ones left intact could last for a long time, and this was also helped by their walls’ coat, a very special plaster which was extremely light because there must have been pumice mixed in it. It was also quite thick and for all those reasons these snow storage could be considered as an enormous thermos in which the snow was kept very well.






























Imperial Tricliniar areas: The Canopus

From time to time ancient Roman emperors used to give banquets for many guests and invited to them a good number of their fellow citizens. To prepare these feasts was no problem at Rome where there were parade grounds and squares large enough to dispose in them the necessary tricliniar couches. But when these banquets were given in a place like Villa Adriana, Hadrian’s little capital, the question on how to dispose the couches and have the necessary space was not so easy to solve. The beauty of Villa Adriana’s perfect landscaping could not be marred by the creation of large and bare esplanades like the ones that existed in Rome where these areas, occupied only once or twice in an year, were left bare and unadorned for the rest.of the time. At Villa Adriana this could not be acceptable. Thus the banquet’s couches were disposed in the imperial residence’s large gardens. The guests resting in the shadow of the porticoes with their long rows of marble columns, encircled by the perfumed flowerbeds and looking at each other across the peaceful canals, could pass the time admiring the beauty of the architectures reflected in these sheets of water.
Glamorous places were these imperial tricliniar area, and if glamorous they appeared when the choreography and the colors of the banquet paraded through them, equally beautiful they looked when empty. Maybe one could get more pleasure from them in those solitary moment, when with no one around it was possible to calmly enjoy the porches, the pavilions, the nymphaea and the magical beauty of the water which on its surface duplicated all the architectures. Lots of water at Villa Adriana, and the clever way in which it was used as an architectonic material formed Villa Adriana’s more distinctive feature, and it was with water used in a plastic and monumental way, that Hadrian brought the scenographic Canopus to a triumph.
The Canopus, practically was the fulcrum of the imperial villa. It occupied a small valley set in the middle of two of its more important areas, to wit the Palace on the eastern side and the Academy on the western. Moreover the Canopus was in a certain way the hearth of the complex and in direct contact with the Great Entrance Hall, the imposing access to the imperial residence. In conclusion the Canopus was the area dedicated to guests of consequence. The valley in which it stood was crossed by a large canal which at its end was closed by the majestic exedra. Here a stibadium, a semicircular tricliniar couch, had been placed, and a small water triclinium, in which the mattresses for the guests were placed directly on the floor, stood between it and the canal..
Today the Canopus which until the 1956 and Aurigemma’s intervention was still covered by 2 m of earth, has been excavated, and all its tricliniar arrangements brought to light. Some time later the exedra’s apse was also examined discovering many tesserae, both of marble and of coloured glass. They had been part of a large, resplendent and many colored mosaic. Looking at it, anyone arriving to the Canopus must have stayed still, nonplussed by the same suggestion that now takes people when they find themselves confronted by the imposing mosaics apses of the byzanthine churches of Istanbul or of the Ravenna ones.
This stunning arrangement was flanked by two very nice pavilions in which we can still see the rises over which the tricliniar couches were set, but one of the more important element of the Canopus was the large and long gallery which opened at the center of the exedra. At its end, set very high, there was a niche that, in ancient times, had contained some sculpture under which water passed and fell down originating the euripus. In a first version this decorative canal had flowed quite low passing under the stibadium in such a way as to give to the guests lying on the couch the impression to dine over a beautiful river. Later on, probably after the return of Hadrian from his second travel around his empire, a wall of 1.60 m high was erected at the entrance to block the water and give it more depth. In the meantime at the centre of the gallery a platform of 4,40 m wide, 8,00 m long and 1.60 m high was built over the water level and it was for this reason that it had been necessary to elevate of 70 cm the base of the low niches which stood over the platform. As no door was created to give an access to this raised area and as it was completely surrounded by water, this platform, was an inaccessible place and thus it was left until the severian times when one of the niches was broken out and a little stairway leading to it was created.
This platform awoke the interest of many people and some hypothesis to explain why it had been built and how it was decorated were presented. A famous archaeologist, Andreae, proposed that a full size copy of the blinding of Polyphemus of Sperlonga had been set there, while the Egyptologist Grenier, accepting in toto the opinion of Kāhler who affirmed that Hadrian had buried his young lover at the Canopus, transformed all the nymphaeum in an Egyptian temple dedicated to Antinoos. Unfortunately we cannot accept neither one of this two hypothesis: not Andreae’s one which was based on the fact that the marble head of one of Ulysses’ companions had been found at Villa Adriana. Apart from the detail that it had been found in the XVIII cent. excavations at Pantanello, a marsh set at quite a distance from the Canopus, a single marble head doesn’t seem enough to justify the presence of an entire and gigantic group. Apart of this, the platform was only 4.40 m large and the only way to arrange Polyphemus over it would have been to set it along one of the walls, but also in this way the colossal monster would not be seen by anybody because the other protagonists of the group hid it and, more than this, as they were turned toward the giant, the only part that one could see of them were their backs.
As for Grenier’s reconstruction of the Canopus as a temple in honour of Antinoos, after my discovery of Hadrian’s lover’s tomb his theory has now been proved unfounded, and moreover, even before presenting it, it was destroyed by Aurigemma excavations which proved that the Canopus was not a temple, but a “coenatio” complete with tricliniar couches and latrines and that all the statues found in the canal were only Roman copies of Greek originals and not the Egyptians ones which, not caring to control where they had been excavated, he included in his reconstruction.
Thus I decided to advance another hypothesis, a more modest one but based on my knowledge of the ancient triclinia and banquet’s display. From this I knew that it was a custom in these occasion to put on view of the guests the more valuable treasures of the house, which in case of kings and emperors could be very important. It was obvious that the platform with no access and surrounded by water was inaccessible, thus it was an ideal place to show off the most precious vessels. In all the imperial triclinia there was some arrangements for doing this. In Kallissenos of Rhodes we read about Tolomeus Philadelphus tent in which a row of deep and large niches were set high, all around the coenatio, and in each one of them mythological banquets had been reconstructed: statues of gods and heroes dressed with the richest dresses and reclined on the most splendid tricliniar couches stood in front of tables charged of golden vessels, jugs and cups. Inspired and imitating the famous tent Nero built a similar arrangement creating the same kind of niches over the lateral “triclinia” of the Domus Aurea’s octagonal hall. Here Hadrian coming back from his stay at Alexandria, where probably he had seen Tolomeus Philadephus tent, decided to do something similar and solved his problem with the inaccessible platform. People participating to Hadrians banquets would admire the scene: the emperor, the more important members of his retinue and the guests of consequence deployed on the long “stibadium” with all the golden treasure as a background while the other important guests were set in the lateral pavilions. The tricliniar couches for the rest of the people were set on the canal’s two banks.
As the ancient Roman banquet began around three o clock in the afternoon of the two banks the western one was already in the shadow cast by the overhanging hill, while the eastern one was hit by the fiercest ray of the sun. But there a portico had been made to protect the people dining there and on this side alone. Hadrian was a very good administrator and also in Villa Adriana he never did any non necessary and expensive element.
However the place was splendid and splendid was also the scene that was presented to the guests. The emperor dominating the scene and all his subjects around. The emperor at the center of all his retinue and at his back this background reverberating golden glows. Everything was studied to concentrate the people’s attention on him. The scenography was perfect and added to the emperor importance and interest making him a superhuman being. However the Roman emperor was a god or at least a god he will became after his death and it was important that such he would be seen by his subjects and everything was made also to sustain the image of some emperor was not at the height of the expectations, To present to everybody this man and god around the emperors there always existed groups of people who managed to keep them always in the foreground.
To day this imperial tricliniar areas impress us with their impressiviness, but we must try to imagine them how they were at those times and represent them as they were during a banquet with their walls still lined by precious marbles their vaults covered by glittering mosaics, with flower garlands hanged among the marble columns, with the mattresses of the tricliniar couches covered by purple, with the mass of guests with their special light and many colored banqueting dresses. Young and beautiful servants turned in the tricliniar area bringing large trays and then prepared the drinks for the symposium. Big cauldrons furnished hot water to dilute the wine, but there was snow for whom preferred it iced Snow taken in winter time from the mountains. Wrapped in big bunches of straw first, then in woolen clothes it was taken back to the plain and for the rest of the year preserved in special deposits.
The most splendid of those deposits were Villa Adriana’s ones. Dug in the tufa they presented a series of gallery set horizontally to both sides of a service canals which had a concave bottom o let the fusion water get out. In the meantime the snow stored in the lateral galleries was sealed with straw and bundle of hay. Due to the fact that one began to use snow taken by only one of the galleries, the other ones left intact could last for a long time, and this was also helped by their walls’ plaster, a very special plaster which was extremely light because probably there must be pumice mixed in it. It was also quite thick an in a certain way these snow storage could be considered as an enormous thermos in which the snow was kept very well.

















































Imperial Tricliniar areas: The Canopus

From time to time ancient Roman emperors used to give banquets for many guests and invited to them a good number of their fellow citizens. To prepare these feasts was no problem at Rome where there were parade grounds and squares large enough to dispose in them the necessary tricliniar couches. But when these banquets were given in a place like Villa Adriana, Hadrian’s little capital, the question on how to dispose the couches and have the necessary space was not so easy to solve. The beauty of Villa Adriana’s perfect landscaping could not be marred by the creation of large and bare esplanades like the ones that existed in Rome where these areas, occupied only once or twice in an year, were left bare and unadorned for the rest.of the time. At Villa Adriana this could not be acceptable. Thus the banquet’s couches were disposed in the imperial residence’s large gardens. The guests resting in the shadow of the porticoes with their long rows of marble columns, encircled by the perfumed flowerbeds and looking at each other across the peaceful canals, could pass the time admiring the beauty of the architectures reflected in these sheets of water.
Glamorous places were these imperial tricliniar area, and if glamorous they appeared when the choreography and the colors of the banquet paraded through them, equally beautiful they looked when empty. Maybe one could get more pleasure from them in those solitary moment, when with no one around it was possible to calmly enjoy the porches, the pavilions, the nymphaea and the magical beauty of the water which on its surface duplicated all the architectures. Lots of water at Villa Adriana, and the clever way in which it was used as an architectonic material formed Villa Adriana’s more distinctive feature, and it was with water used in a plastic and monumental way, that Hadrian brought the scenographic Canopus to a triumph.
The Canopus, practically was the fulcrum of the imperial villa. It occupied a small valley set in the middle of two of its more important areas, to wit the Palace on the eastern side and the Academy on the western. Moreover the Canopus was in a certain way the hearth of the complex and in direct contact with the Great Entrance Hall, the imposing access to the imperial residence. In conclusion the Canopus was the area dedicated to guests of consequence. The valley in which it stood was crossed by a large canal which at its end was closed by the majestic exedra. Here a stibadium, a semicircular tricliniar couch, had been placed, and a small water triclinium, in which the mattresses for the guests were placed directly on the floor, stood between it and the canal..
Today the Canopus which until the 1956 and Aurigemma’s intervention was still covered by 2 m of earth, has been excavated, and all its tricliniar arrangements brought to light. Some time later the exedra’s apse was also examined discovering many tesserae, both of marble and of coloured glass. They had been part of a large, resplendent and many colored mosaic. Looking at it, anyone arriving to the Canopus must have stayed still, nonplussed by the same suggestion that now takes people when they find themselves confronted by the imposing mosaics apses of the byzanthine churches of Istanbul or of the Ravenna ones.
This stunning arrangement was flanked by two very nice pavilions in which we can still see the rises over which the tricliniar couches were set, but one of the more important element of the Canopus was the large and long gallery which opened at the center of the exedra. At its end, set very high, there was a niche that, in ancient times, had contained some sculpture under which water passed and fell down originating the euripus. In a first version this decorative canal had flowed quite low passing under the stibadium in such a way as to give to the guests lying on the couch the impression to dine over a beautiful river. Later on, probably after the return of Hadrian from his second travel around his empire, a wall of 1.60 m high was erected at the entrance to block the water and give it more depth. In the meantime at the centre of the gallery a platform of 4,40 m wide, 8,00 m long and 1.60 m high was built over the water level and it was for this reason that it had been necessary to elevate of 70 cm the base of the low niches which stood over the platform. As no door was created to give an access to this raised area and as it was completely surrounded by water, this platform, was an inaccessible place and thus it was left until the severian times when one of the niches was broken out and a little stairway leading to it was created.
This platform awoke the interest of many people and some hypothesis to explain why it had been built and how it was decorated were presented. A famous archaeologist, Andreae, proposed that a full size copy of the blinding of Polyphemus of Sperlonga had been set there, while the Egyptologist Grenier, accepting in toto the opinion of Kāhler who affirmed that Hadrian had buried his young lover at the Canopus, transformed all the nymphaeum in an Egyptian temple dedicated to Antinoos. Unfortunately we cannot accept neither one of this two hypothesis: not Andreae’s one which was based on the fact that the marble head of one of Ulysses’ companions had been found at Villa Adriana. Apart from the detail that it had been found in the XVIII cent. excavations at Pantanello, a marsh set at quite a distance from the Canopus, a single marble head doesn’t seem enough to justify the presence of an entire and gigantic group. Apart of this, the platform was only 4.40 m large and the only way to arrange Polyphemus over it would have been to set it along one of the walls, but also in this way the colossal monster would not be seen by anybody because the other protagonists of the group hid it and, more than this, as they were turned toward the giant, the only part that one could see of them were their backs.
As for Grenier’s reconstruction of the Canopus as a temple in honour of Antinoos, after my discovery of Hadrian’s lover’s tomb his theory has now been proved unfounded, and moreover, even before presenting it, it was destroyed by Aurigemma excavations which proved that the Canopus was not a temple, but a “coenatio” complete with tricliniar couches and latrines and that all the statues found in the canal were only Roman copies of Greek originals and not the Egyptians ones which, not caring to control where they had been excavated, he included in his reconstruction.
Thus I decided to advance another hypothesis, a more modest one but based on my knowledge of the ancient triclinia and banquet’s display. From this I knew that it was a custom in these occasion to put on view of the guests the more valuable treasures of the house, which in case of kings and emperors could be very important. It was obvious that the platform with no access and surrounded by water was inaccessible, thus it was an ideal place to show off the most precious vessels. In all the imperial triclinia there was some arrangements for doing this. In Kallissenos of Rhodes we read about Tolomeus Philadelphus tent in which a row of deep and large niches were set high, all around the coenatio, and in each one of them mythological banquets had been reconstructed: statues of gods and heroes dressed with the richest dresses and reclined on the most splendid tricliniar couches stood in front of tables charged of golden vessels, jugs and cups. Inspired and imitating the famous tent Nero built a similar arrangement creating the same kind of niches over the lateral “triclinia” of the Domus Aurea’s octagonal hall. Here Hadrian coming back from his stay at Alexandria, where probably he had seen Tolomeus Philadephus tent, decided to do something similar and solved his problem with the inaccessible platform. People participating to Hadrians banquets would admire the scene: the emperor, the more important members of his retinue and the guests of consequence deployed on the long “stibadium” with all the golden treasure as a background while the other important guests were set in the lateral pavilions. The tricliniar couches for the rest of the people were set on the canal’s two banks.
As the ancient Roman banquet began around three o clock in the afternoon of the two banks the western one was already in the shadow cast by the overhanging hill, while the eastern one was hit by the fiercest ray of the sun. But there a portico had been made to protect the people dining there and on this side alone. Hadrian was a very good administrator and also in Villa Adriana he never did any non necessary and expensive element.
However the place was splendid and splendid was also the scene that was presented to the guests. The emperor dominating the scene and all his subjects around. The emperor at the center of all his retinue and at his back this background reverberating golden glows. Everything was studied to concentrate the people’s attention on him. The scenography was perfect and added to the emperor importance and interest making him a superhuman being. However the Roman emperor was a god or at least a god he will became after his death and it was important that such he would be seen by his subjects and everything was made also to sustain the image of some emperor was not at the height of the expectations, To present to everybody this man and god around the emperors there always existed groups of people who managed to keep them always in the foreground.
To day this imperial tricliniar areas impress us with their impressiviness, but we must try to imagine them how they were at those times and represent them as they were during a banquet with their walls still lined by precious marbles their vaults covered by glittering mosaics, with flower garlands hanged among the marble columns, with the mattresses of the tricliniar couches covered by purple, with the mass of guests with their special light and many colored banqueting dresses. Young and beautiful servants turned in the tricliniar area bringing large trays and then prepared the drinks for the symposium. Big cauldrons furnished hot water to dilute the wine, but there was snow for whom preferred it iced Snow taken in winter time from the mountains. Wrapped in big bunches of straw first, then in woolen clothes it was taken back to the plain and for the rest of the year preserved in special deposits.
The most splendid of those deposits were Villa Adriana’s ones. Dug in the tufa they presented a series of gallery set horizontally to both sides of a service canals which had a concave bottom o let the fusion water get out. In the meantime the snow stored in the lateral galleries was sealed with straw and bundle of hay. Due to the fact that one began to use snow taken by only one of the galleries, the other ones left intact could last for a long time, and this was also helped by their walls’ plaster, a very special plaster which was extremely light because probably there must be pumice mixed in it. It was also quite thick an in a certain way these snow storage could be considered as an enormous thermos in which the snow was kept very well.





























Imperial Tricliniar areas: The Canopus

From time to time ancient Roman emperors used to give banquets for many guests and invited to them a good number of their fellow citizens. To prepare these feasts was no problem at Rome where there were parade grounds and squares large enough to dispose in them the necessary tricliniar couches. But when these banquets were given in a place like Villa Adriana, Hadrian’s little capital, the question on how to dispose the couches and have the necessary space was not so easy to solve. The beauty of Villa Adriana’s perfect landscaping could not be marred by the creation of large and bare esplanades like the ones that existed in Rome where these areas, occupied only once or twice in an year, were left bare and unadorned for the rest.of the time. At Villa Adriana this could not be acceptable. Thus the banquet’s couches were disposed in the imperial residence’s large gardens. The guests resting in the shadow of the porticoes with their long rows of marble columns, encircled by the perfumed flowerbeds and looking at each other across the peaceful canals, could pass the time admiring the beauty of the architectures reflected in these sheets of water.
Glamorous places were these imperial tricliniar area, and if glamorous they appeared when the choreography and the colors of the banquet paraded through them, equally beautiful they looked when empty. Maybe one could get more pleasure from them in those solitary moment, when with no one around it was possible to calmly enjoy the porches, the pavilions, the nymphaea and the magical beauty of the water which on its surface duplicated all the architectures. Lots of water at Villa Adriana, and the clever way in which it was used as an architectonic material formed Villa Adriana’s more distinctive feature, and it was with water used in a plastic and monumental way, that Hadrian brought the scenographic Canopus to a triumph.
The Canopus, practically was the fulcrum of the imperial villa. It occupied a small valley set in the middle of two of its more important areas, to wit the Palace on the eastern side and the Academy on the western. Moreover the Canopus was in a certain way the hearth of the complex and in direct contact with the Great Entrance Hall, the imposing access to the imperial residence. In conclusion the Canopus was the area dedicated to guests of consequence. The valley in which it stood was crossed by a large canal which at its end was closed by the majestic exedra. Here a stibadium, a semicircular tricliniar couch, had been placed, and a small water triclinium, in which the mattresses for the guests were placed directly on the floor, stood between it and the canal..
Today the Canopus which until the 1956 and Aurigemma’s intervention was still covered by 2 m of earth, has been excavated, and all its tricliniar arrangements brought to light. Some time later the exedra’s apse was also examined discovering many tesserae, both of marble and of coloured glass. They had been part of a large, resplendent and many colored mosaic. Looking at it, anyone arriving to the Canopus must have stayed still, nonplussed by the same suggestion that now takes people when they find themselves confronted by the imposing mosaics apses of the byzanthine churches of Istanbul or of the Ravenna ones.
This stunning arrangement was flanked by two very nice pavilions in which we can still see the rises over which the tricliniar couches were set, but one of the more important element of the Canopus was the large and long gallery which opened at the center of the exedra. At its end, set very high, there was a niche that, in ancient times, had contained some sculpture under which water passed and fell down originating the euripus. In a first version this decorative canal had flowed quite low passing under the stibadium in such a way as to give to the guests lying on the couch the impression to dine over a beautiful river. Later on, probably after the return of Hadrian from his second travel around his empire, a wall of 1.60 m high was erected at the entrance to block the water and give it more depth. In the meantime at the centre of the gallery a platform of 4,40 m wide, 8,00 m long and 1.60 m high was built over the water level and it was for this reason that it had been necessary to elevate of 70 cm the base of the low niches which stood over the platform. As no door was created to give an access to this raised area and as it was completely surrounded by water, this platform, was an inaccessible place and thus it was left until the severian times when one of the niches was broken out and a little stairway leading to it was created.
This platform awoke the interest of many people and some hypothesis to explain why it had been built and how it was decorated were presented. A famous archaeologist, Andreae, proposed that a full size copy of the blinding of Polyphemus of Sperlonga had been set there, while the Egyptologist Grenier, accepting in toto the opinion of Kāhler who affirmed that Hadrian had buried his young lover at the Canopus, transformed all the nymphaeum in an Egyptian temple dedicated to Antinoos. Unfortunately we cannot accept neither one of this two hypothesis: not Andreae’s one which was based on the fact that the marble head of one of Ulysses’ companions had been found at Villa Adriana. Apart from the detail that it had been found in the XVIII cent. excavations at Pantanello, a marsh set at quite a distance from the Canopus, a single marble head doesn’t seem enough to justify the presence of an entire and gigantic group. Apart of this, the platform was only 4.40 m large and the only way to arrange Polyphemus over it would have been to set it along one of the walls, but also in this way the colossal monster would not be seen by anybody because the other protagonists of the group hid it and, more than this, as they were turned toward the giant, the only part that one could see of them were their backs.
As for Grenier’s reconstruction of the Canopus as a temple in honour of Antinoos, after my discovery of Hadrian’s lover’s tomb his theory has now been proved unfounded, and moreover, even before presenting it, it was destroyed by Aurigemma excavations which proved that the Canopus was not a temple, but a “coenatio” complete with tricliniar couches and latrines and that all the statues found in the canal were only Roman copies of Greek originals and not the Egyptians ones which, not caring to control where they had been excavated, he included in his reconstruction.
Thus I decided to advance another hypothesis, a more modest one but based on my knowledge of the ancient triclinia and banquet’s display. From this I knew that it was a custom in these occasion to put on view of the guests the more valuable treasures of the house, which in case of kings and emperors could be very important. It was obvious that the platform with no access and surrounded by water was inaccessible, thus it was an ideal place to show off the most precious vessels. In all the imperial triclinia there was some arrangements for doing this. In Kallissenos of Rhodes we read about Tolomeus Philadelphus tent in which a row of deep and large niches were set high, all around the coenatio, and in each one of them mythological banquets had been reconstructed: statues of gods and heroes dressed with the richest dresses and reclined on the most splendid tricliniar couches stood in front of tables charged of golden vessels, jugs and cups. Inspired and imitating the famous tent, Nero built a similar arrangement creating the same kind of niches over the lateral “triclinia” of the Domus Aurea’s octagonal hall. Here Hadrian coming back from his stay at Alexandria, where probably he had seen Tolomeus Philadephus tent, decided to do something similar and solved his problem with the inaccessible platform. People participating to Hadrians banquets would admire the scene: the emperor, the more important members of his retinue and the guests of consequence deployed on the long “stibadium” with all the golden treasure as a background while the other important guests were set in the lateral pavilions. The tricliniar couches for the rest of the people were set on the canal’s two banks.
As the ancient Roman banquet began around three o clock in the afternoon of the two banks the western one was already in the shadow cast by the overhanging hill, while the eastern one was hit by the fiercest rays of the sun. Thithere a portico had been made to protect the people dining there: a portico on this side alone. Hadrian was a very good administrator and also in Villa Adriana he never did any non necessary and expensive element.


Bibliography

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