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The other tricliniar areas

by Eugenia Salza Prina RicottiI

The so called Stadium and the Piazza d’Oro

The so called stadium.
At Villa Adriana besides the Canopus there were two others tricliniar areas. The first of them was composed by the Three Exedras Building, the Winter Palace and the so called Stadium, a garden set between these two edifices and fashioned as a sport implantation. Of all the three imperial reception areas this was the first to have been built, and in 125 A.D., on his return from his first journey around the Roman empire, Hadrian found it completed. To prove it beyond any doubt are its brick stamps that belongs to the period before the 123 A.D..
This “coenatio” included the first floor of the Winter Palace, that was set at a level higher than the garden. Here there were three halls; the lateral rooms were probably reserved to the retinue and to the emperor’s close friends, while the central one was for him (fig.1, b). As this room had a very large window, Hadrian could be seen by nearly all his guests, a form of courtesy that made them feel that they were really banqueting with their emperor. All those tricliniar areas (fig.1, a. b. c) faced a large
The so called stadium.
At Villa Adriana besides the Canopus there were two others tricliniar areas. The first of them was composed by the Three Exedras Building, the Winter Palace and the so called Stadium, a garden set between these two edifices and fashioned as a sport implantation. Of all the three imperial reception areas this was the first to have been built, and in 125 A.D., on his return from his first journey around the Roman empire, Hadrian found it completed. To prove it beyond any doubt are its brick stamps that belongs to the period before the 123 A.D..
This “coenatio” included the first floor of the Winter Palace, that was set at a level higher than the garden. Here there were three halls; the lateral rooms were probably reserved to the retinue and to the emperor’s close friends, while the central one was for him (fig.1, b). As this room had a very large window, Hadrian could be seen by nearly all his guests, a form of courtesy that made them feel that they were really banqueting with their emperor. All those tricliniar areas (fig.1, a. b. c) faced a large square set at the middle of the so-called Stadium (fig.1, d), a place that was inexplicably interpreted by Hoffman, the German Archaeologist who excavated and studied the place, as a lake. The point is that here the tufa platform is only 10 cm under the level of the porches and of the pavilions, and to create a sheet of water one had first to level the tufa platform with a layer of cement nearly a five cm high; after this it would have been necessary to impermeabilize the basin by at least two cm of “opus signinum”; then there would have been the necessity to place mosaic to decorate it. At this moment the ten cm were gone because the mosaic would have been at the same level of the porches and the pavilions. What makes astonishing to read and see this lake in Hoffman’s reconstruction was that he had completely uncovered the tufa platform, and drawn a section of it that was published in his book Das Gartenstadion in der Villa Hadriana (Mainz 1980).
Besides it is evident that if the tufa had not been nearly surfacing and a basin could really have existed there it would have cut all comunications between the two pavilions and also the ones between the northern and southern parts of the garden.
Now looking at this area and knowing that it had a tricliniar destination - a fact recognized also by Hoffman - we must point at the fact that one of the banqueting customs of the Romans was to enliven their dinners with all kinds of entertainment. Moreover we learn from Spartianus that, while dining, Hadrian always liked to assist at spectacles and that he always ordered that comedies, farces, tragedies, musicians exhibitions or even readings of poetry would be held during his meals. It is evident that the area which Hoffman tried to transform into a lake, was the ideal for those spectacles.
Very good is instead the reconstruction that Hoffman does of the emicyle that at south conclude the Stadium. He excavated it and brought to light the white marble narrow steps of 8 stairs on which glided the water brought by a canal set in the higher part of the hemicycle. Between this small water falls large cement cases contained greenery, probably boxtree, cut in form to imitate the steps on which the spectators sat.
On the northern side instead at the place were in the real “stadia” the stables were, stood tre elegant room. In the central one, where a niche might have contained a beautiful statue, the floor was covered by one of the most beautiful “opus sectile” of Villa Adriana. Between those rooms and the northern pavilion there was a small garden in which a simple but elegant marble lined “euripus” was flanked by two rectangular flower-bed. Rows of columns ran on its side, while small fountains and basis for statues were set againt the pavilion‘s walls. It was here that Hadrian gave his first Villa Adriana’s banquets for many of his fellow-citizens.


The Piazza d’Oro.
The Piazza d’Oro was another tricliniar area and it was the most elegant of alls. Here Hadrian sat in direct contact with his guests, therefore it was here that were held the more important banquets with most important people. Here the guests arrived by the underground communication road. After having reached the place, they got out of their carriages and went toward the monumental entrance hall. There they could admire the peristyle garden and, in the background, the magnificent pavilion. It is worthwhile to try to recreate the awe that took the persons entering in that imposing edifice. Before them they saw the long porticoes framing all the greenery, and at the back, mirrored on the blue waters of the canal that crossed all the garden, the elegant building, Neither less beautiful must have appeared the view of the high entrance hall topped by its imposing umbrella shaped dome and reflected in the canal. Now the walls are ruined and also half of the entrance hall has collapsed. But in Hadrian’s times all was in place and the walls of the building were either marble revetted or stuccoed and white painted, moreover there was water in the canal. We can have an idea of the spectacle that entranced the banquet’s guests remembering what we can see today when, visiting the Mausoleum of the Taj Mahhal at Agra in India, we see its white beauty cast back to us from the sheet of water in the long canal.
In this Piazza d’Oro, (Golden Square), so called for the richness of its decoration, guests arrived either from Rome or from Tivoli where the greatest Roman families had their country houses. With this important people arrived also their retinue, all those persons that usually accompanied them: guests, secretaries, philosophers, poets, rhetors and with them the ever present “umbrae”, people whom now, in Italian, we call the “imbucati”, people who were not invited at the feast but being strictly connected with the important personage who had been, came with him because, by the Roman custom, a guest was authorised to bring with him a certain number of “umbrae”. The retinues and the “umbrae” took their places on the tricliniar couches arranged under the peristyle’s portico with its precious marble floorings –ancient yellow, red one and serpentine - that decked the soil with the rich mantle of its intertwined colours. Here they would dine and from there they could see the emperor laying with his most illustrious guests in the central triclinium. On the background there was the splendid curvilinear nymphaeum that crowned it occupying all its width, while set at the corners of the central part of the pavilion four minor nymphaea hosted other tricliniar couches. Those heavy nymphaea’s structures with their sturdy walls reinforced by the bulk of the six latrinae built there for the diners comfort, formed four strong pillars on which stood the now destroyed pavilion’s covering, roof or dome, whatever it was.
On both sides of the central hall there were two small but very elegant atria decorated by freezes with erotes scenes. Two triclinia faced each other on two of their sides while on the third there was a large triclinium. Obviously there were also rooms for whom, tired during the banquet, desired to retire and rest.
On the western side of the building, under a little portico, we find two other rooms evidently connected with the nearby kitchen’s area and were used by the waiters. To sum it up they were the kind of places that today we call “offices”. From there arrived all the dishes that had to be brought to the triclinia.
Apart of two cryptoporch that ran on the two long side of the peristyle, there were other areas where to rest and chat with some friends. Outside of the cryptoporch, on the east side of the building, a large apsed nymphaeum, set on the margin of a large marble basin, enjoyed the view of Tivoli and its mountains, and always here, not much far away, set over a little arena for the gladiators’ combats, there was a terrace from which Hadrian, a fan of those spectacles. and his guests could assist to the fights without coming down and taking place in the arena’s gallery.
At last, just at the exit door from the subterranean carriage road and at the level with the garden, there were some rooms, probably for those guests who were too tired or to the ones who had to spend some time at Villa Adriana. From what we still see these rooms must have been very elegant and in one of them we still admire a beautiful flooring of “alabastro cotognino” listed all around by a red marble moulding.
Evidently not all the guests stood for the night. At the end of the banquet nearly all of them got out of the “Golden Square” and, mounted on their carriages, went back home.