Villa Adriana Tivoli - BIBLIOTECA GRECA

Untitled 1

VILLA ADRIANA by MARINA DE FRANCESCHINI

Responsive Flat Dropdown Menu Demo

Home → Buildings → Selected Building

GREEK LIBRARY

A sort of Propylaeum for the private part of the Villa

©MarinaDeFranceschini - Progetto Accademia

14 – GREEK LIBRARY

Description

The entrance to the Greek Library [PHOTO] has two stairs BG1 and BG2 which give access to a large quadrangular hall BG3, once covered by a cross vault.

It had three rectangular niches on the sides (BG3a-b-c) while the fourth niche BG3c opened with a window onto the next hall BG9, so as to have a see-through view.

Entrance of the Greek Library

Corridor BG7 is along the western side of the building and has two stairs: one goes down to the Maritime Theatre, the other (closed to the public) reached the upper floor of the building.

The second large hall BG9 also has three rectangular niches and was covered by a cross vault. It was accessed indirectly via the corridors BG8 and BG10.

From BG10 it was possible to access the rooms BG11-12-13, whose irregular shape served to connect the orientation of the Greek Library to the different one of the Courtyard of the Libraries.

In room BG18 there was a service stair (today there is a modern stair), which went up to an intermediate floor, where the heating system fo winter was located

During the excavations of 1880-1881 a fragmentary statue of Dionysus was found in the Greek Library, together with a treasure of over 2600 coins of which nothing is known today.

Only partially accessible to the public.

Function and meaning

The Greek library had opus sectile pavements, and few restored fragments remain in situ, so it belonged to the noble and imperial quarters of the Villa. In room BG10 there is a polychrome mosaic with rectangular tesserae.

On the ceilings there are some fragments of frescoes with traces of color.

Many walls were restored with modern brick facing; on the original walls there are the holes of the nails for the marble slabs that revetted them entirely.

Mosaic pavement of the Greek Library

The name Greek Library is obviously fictitious and was created to distinguish this building from the nearby Latin Library (n. 15).

The two buildings were named Libraries in the sixteenth century by Pirro Ligorio, whi thought that the rectangular niches could contain papyri and manuscripts. He called them them "Greek" and "Latin" simply because they were two.

Actually in some niches there are doors and in any case there are no traces of shelves.

According to Filippo Coarelli, the Libraries could be two summer triclinia, because they were oriented towards the north. But this is not very likely, since there is no place for a stibadium, which was found instead in all the other triclinia identified in the Villa.

Finally, according to Kähler, the Libraries resemble the Vitruvian turres of the Villas, and this is perhaps the most convincing idea.

The two Libraries probably were two monumental atria decorated with statues, a sort of Propylaea, which marked the access to the private quarters of the Villa for those coming from the north. An imposing building, a symbol of imperial luxury and wealth.

Given that the heating systems in non-thermal buildings exist only in very few ones of the Villa, it is likely that the Greek Library was used by the emperor as a winter residence before the construction of the Winter Palace (n. 33), which similarly had a heating system for winter.

SEE: Marina De Franceschini, Villa Adriana. Mosaici, pavimenti, edifici, 1991, Greek Library pp. 78-82 e 380-385.