©MarinaDeFranceschini - Progetto Accademia
22 - HALL WITH DORIC PILLARS
Description
This simple and elegant building has an access corridor PD1 to the east, which continues towards the Golden Square, from which the cryptoporticus PD2 begins; it is built close to the Nymphaeum PI3 of the Imperial Palace. It still has a white mosaic pavement decorated with squares in the shades of green and yellow.
View of the Hall with Doric Pillars
Few steps descend into the portico PD3-4, paved in opus sectile also in the central part, which suggests that it was covered by a roof. The portico 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 (see bibliography).
On the west side of the portico there is a vast hall PD7, paved in opus sectile of which some original slabs of cipollino marble remain in situ. The walls there were completely revetted with precious marbles, with large rectangular panels (perhaps reliefs?); the holes for the grappas, are all what is left.
Hall PD7 is flanked by four symmetrical rectangular rooms, PD5-6 and PD8-9, some of which are used for storing fragments of marbles coming from the excavations.
On the west side, room PD7 opens onto the large garden PD11, which ended with an apse with niches and had a base for a statue in its center.
The garden was surrounded by 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, in portico PI28.
From the eastern corridor of the portico PD10 there was a passageway to the Winter Palace or back to the Imperial Palace, entering near the Summer Triclinium PI25.
Function and meaning
The decoration and the opus sectile pavements prove that the building belonged to the imperial quarters. For a long time the building was supposed to be the Throne Room, due to the presence of the base in the apse PD11. The idea is wrong, since that was a garden and it makes no sense to think of an open-air throne room.
This function can instead be attributed to the Hall of the Philosophers, which was much larger and more monumental, and richly decorated with red porphyry, the symbolic stone of the imperial power.
The Hall served as a 'hinge' to give 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.