VILLA ADRIANA - GOLDEN SQUARE: THE GREAT LIBRARY OF THE VILLA?

The name Golden Square (Piazza d'Oro) evokes the Tiburtine legend of the "Golden Carriage of Hadrian" which should be buried somewhere; the name is obviously fictitious as for most of the buildings of the Villa.

The monumental entrance has an octagonal Vestibule, with an umbrella dome. It gives access to a large garden with water basins, surrounded by a double portico with walls decorated with arches and semi-columns. The floors were in opus sectile of precious marbles and in polychrome mosaic; the capitals and the Corinthian pilasters were of white marble.

In a side room (closed to the public), many fragments of a beautiful marble frieze with hunting scenes have been stacked for over forty years, under precarious canopies.  They deserve to be cleaned and exhibited in the Antiquarium of the Villa.

The large central exedra opposite the entrance (closed to visitors but visible from outside) has seven niches from which small cascades of water flowed into a channel and then flowed into the garden water basins. In the niches there were some sculptures now lost, and some marbles that decorated them were still visible few years ago.

On the eastern side there is a large summer Triclinium, with an oval pool in front of it which overlooked the panorama towards the Valley of Tempe and the so-called Gladiators Arena, the oval visible in the plastic model.

The plan of the building is very similar to that of Hadrian's Stoa in Athens, which was a monumental Library. Perhaps the Golden Square had that same function: the outer portico has a series of niches that could have been used to store ancient papyri and texts. Since the emperor Hadrian was very cultured, fond of study and of the arts, this building could have been the "Cultural Center" of his Villa.

‼️  Was Piazza d'Oro the great Library of Villa Adriana?