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GARDEN STADIUM

An inner garden with a summer triclinium

©MarinaDeFranceschini - Progetto Accademia

32 - GARDEN STADIUM

Description

An rectangular building with a curved south side, the Garden Stadium is between the Building with Three Exedras to the west and the Winter Palace to the east. The were tightly linked together, and belonged to the Imperial Residence.

The Garden Stadium is divided into three parts: the central part, north side and south nymphaeum.

The central part had a large inner garden NS15, flanked by porticoes NS14 and NS16 which connected it to the nearby buildings.

Opus sectile pavement in room NS2

On the north side there was a pavilion with roof and fountains NS12, where perhaps sculptures were placed.

Then an open air garden with water basins NS9-10-11 and at the end a large central exedra NS2 with a niche in the center. It was flanked by rooms NS1 and NS3.

Fresco in room NS3

The frescoes and the brightly colored opus sectile floor are well preserved in NS3, where a door gave access to service corridors that reached the Maritime Theater and the exedra PC5 of the Poecile.

In NS7 there was a single latrine, recently excavated.

Triclinium NS17 and at the end Nymphaeum NS20

On the south side was instead a building in the shape of a stadium hence the name of the building. It had a semicircular nymphaeum NS20 with steps, similar to that of the Imperial Palace PI3. From the steps the water flowed in cascades and was collected in a basin and then in channels and in a small fountain NS21, revetted with tartari to resemble a grotto.

A beautiful 3D reconstruction of the Nymphaeum with steps for the water was proposed by Bernard Frischer and Matthew Brennan within their Digital Hadrian's Villa Project.

At the center of this system of water basins and canals was the pavilion NS17, a very cool and airy summer triclinium. The pillars that supported its roof had splendid Ionic capitals in slate and white marble.

Function and meaning

The precious decoration, the sculptures, the water features and the single latrine prove that the building was part of the imperial quarters of the Villa.

Despite the stadium shape, certainly it was not a stadium, just as the so-called stadium of the Palatine palace in Rome was not a stadium.

Instead, it was an inner and secluded garden with a summer triclinium in the center, located under an open and airy pavilion.

It was the private triclinium of the Villa, for the exclusive use of the emperor, while the monumental triclinium of the Canopus was meant for official public receptions.

The Triclinium o the Garden Stadium finds comparisons in the Auditorium of Maecenas in Rome which also had a nymphaeum with steps; it was decorated by trompe l'oeil frescoes reproducing a garden, similar to the one that was seen from the Triclinium NS17. It seems to have been transformed into a triclinium by Tiberius.

Another comparison is the Voliera of Varro, also in Rome, which had the same destination.

See n. 4 - The Imperiale Residence of Villa Adriana in the section Discover the Villa

SEE: Marina De Franceschini, Villa Adriana. Mosaici, pavimenti, edifici. Roma 1991, pp. 216-224 and 502-512.

Neuerburg 1965; Hoffmann 1980; De Franceschini 2006; Sgalambro 2009.