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VILLA ADRIANA by MARINA DE FRANCESCHINI

POECILE



A large garden with portico, supported by the Hundred Chambers

©MarinaDeFranceschini - Progetto Accademia

28 - POECILE
Description
It is the largest square of Villa Adriana, 230 × 96 m and has a double portico to the north, PC1-PC2, of which the central wall in opus mixum of tuff and bricks remains standing. It has 104 holes on top, for the beams supporting the roof.

The south-western part of the Pecile rests on a massive system of 15 m high artificial substructures: the Hundred Chambers (n. 29, see related entry).

PECILE muro spina e alberi.png
The central wall of the double portico of the Poecile

The double portico PC1-2 and the inner portico PC3 had columns which have disappeared. According to antiquarian texts they were removed by Caracalla or Constantine to be reused elsewhere. According to other scholars there were instead masonry pillars, which seems more likely, given their large number.
Nothing remains of the floor, and the walls do not have the holes for the nails of a marble revetment, so they had to be plastered and frescoed.

The Poecile was a huge closed garden, with a large water basin in the center, PC4. At the center of the east side is a large room PC5, in whose apse a base has been added, probably for statues. From there it was possible to access both the Maritime Theater and the Building with Three Exedras with service passages.
From the east end of the double porch PC1-2 two stairways go up to the Hall of the Philosophers. On the south side there was instead the entrance of the Building with Three Exedras and from there to the complex of the Imperial Residence.

Water basin of the Poecile
Function and meaning
The size and central location prove that the Pecile belonged to the imperial quarters of the Villa. Given its enormous size, it is intended to accommodate a large number of visitors or guests. One of the main entrances to the Villa was supposed to arrive here, coming from the area of the Fede Nymphaeum.
It was a large public area, from which it was possible to access the other private quarters of the Villa, with obligatory and supervised passages.
In the double portico it is still possible to walk in the summer on the north side PC1 which was cooler and in the shade. In winter, the southern side PC2 is warmer and more sheltered, depending on which side is chosen.

The Poecile is one of the sites of Greek antiquity listed by the Historia Augusta in when speaking about the ancient buildings that Hadrian wanted in some way to remember in his Villa.
The Stoà Pecile in Athens was famous because it was painted by the greatest artists that time, such as Polygnotus. During the Renaissance, antiquarian scholars identified the Pecile with this large portico of Villa Adriana, hence its name.

SEE: Marina De Franceschini, Villa Adriana. Mosaici, pavimenti, edifici. Roma 1991, pp. 202-204 and 492-497.
Hulsen 1896; Coarelli 1997.


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