VILLA ADRIANA. HALL WITH DORIC PILLARS
This simple and elegant building has an access corridor with a cryptoporticus that still has a white mosaic pavement decorated with squares in the shades of green and yellow.
Few steps descend into the portico that had no columns but fluted pillars supporting a Doric frieze, hence its name; they were raised and restored in the 1950s.
A fragment of the same Doric frieze can also be seen in Tivoli in Piazza Palatina, reused to decorate Palazzo Boschi-Del Re (see bibliography). The portico is paved in opus sectile also in the central part, which suggests that it was covered by a roof.
On the opposite side of the portico there is a vast Hall (PD7), paved in opus sectile: some original slabs of cipollino marble remain in situ.
The walls there were completely cladded with precious marbles, with large rectangular panels probably for marble reliefs; the holes for the nails holding in place the marble slabs, are all what is left.
Hall PD7 is flanked by four symmetrical rectangular rooms, some of which are used as deposits of excavated marbles.
Hall PD7 opens on a large scenographic garden, which ended with an apse with niches and had a base for a statue in its center.
The garden was surrounded by a portico (PD10) paved in white mosaic with fragments of colored marble; it imitates the one from the Republican era visible in the nearby Imperial Palace.
For a long time the building was supposed to be the Throne room, due to the presence of the base in the apse of the garden: this is wrong, since it makes no sense to think of an open-air Throne room.
The Throne room more likely was in the Hall of the Philosophers, which was much larger and monumental, richly decorated with red porphyry, the symbolic stone of the imperial power.
The Hall with Doric Pillars served as a 'hinge' that gave access to nearby buildings: Golden Square, Imperial Palace, Winter Palace.
It could also be used to display a collection of sculptures or precious objects.
Unfortunately we have no information on the excavations that could provide any clues.
Marina De Franceschini, «I marmi architettonici di Villa Adriana "murati per le case di Tivoli"» in Marmora 15, 2019, pp. 123-154.
Marina De Franceschini, Villa Adriana. Mosaici, pavimenti, edifici. Roma 1991, pp. 134-139 and 417-421.