EXPERIENCING LANDSCAPE IN ANTIQUITY
II Convegno Internazionale di Antichità Classiche:
Università degli Studi di Roma "Tor Vergata" 22-24 novembre 2021
Presentation of Marina De Franceschini:
A Sacred Landscape in Hadrian’s Villa near Tivoli (Rome): the Accademia Esplanade
(From her book Villa Adriana Architettura Celeste)
Abstract
The present landscape of Villa Adriana is the outcome of the cultivation of vines and olive trees since the Middle Ages, and then of the romantic idea of "Landscape with Ruins" which dates back to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. At the time of Emperor Hadrian, the landscape was completely different from today. There was a ‘natural’ landscape, the Campagna surrounding the Villa; but inside the Villa the landscape consisted of a series of artificial esplanades, with gardens and buildings.
Thanks to the studies and discoveries of Archaeoastronomy of my Accademia Project, we propose a new interpretation of the function and symbolic meaning of the Accademia Esplanade as a Sacred Landscape. It was the highest of the Villa, a real Acropolis, reachable by an hidden path, similar to an initiatory path. At one end of the Accademia Esplanade there was the building of Roccabruna, that once had a small temple on top; on the opposite end there were the buildings of the Accademia, Mimizia, and the Odeon (the second theater of the Villa) which are still privately owned.
In Roccabruna and in the Accademia in the days of the Summer and Winter Solstices, special illuminations (hierophanies) still occur today: probably the two buildings were dedicated to the cult of the Egyptian goddess Isis and linked to the cycle of the Seasons. This is why the Accademia Esplanade can be considered as a Sacred Landscape, where processions and sacred representations linked to that mystery cult took place.