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VILLA ADRIANA by MARINA DE FRANCESCHINI

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LARGE BATHS

Thermal plant for slaves and personnel, with a magnificent stucco ceiling

©MarinaDeFranceschini - Progetto Accademia

37 - GREAT BATHS

Description

The Great Baths consist of a large gymnasium GT1-2 with an open central courtyard paved in opus spicatum and surrounded by a portico.
A large room GT7 opens onto it, flanked by two exedras and a corridor that lead to the thermal plant, with heated and cold sections.

The huge hall GT22 was the Frigidarium, with two basins for cold water in GT15 and GT 23, once covered with large slabs of white marble and accessed with steps. Near GT23 two large columns in cipollino marble have been restored with their Ionic capitals.

GRANDI TERME FOTO frigidarium e colonne.png

Frigidarium of the Great Baths

In room GT22 there is a spectacular cross vault partially collapsed, which seems to stand up by a miracle. It has been like this for centuries, as documented by an eighteenth-century engraving by Piranesi.

In the large hall GT21 part of the stucco ceiling is still in place, and was designed by great Renaissance artists such as Antonio da Sangallo.

The heated part of the Termal plant is located to the southwest as prescribed by Vitruvius.
In most of the rooms only the lower floor in remains, paved with sesquipedale; parts of the upper pavement black and white mosaic are restored above the columns of the suspensurae of the heating plant.

At the center of the south-west side is a large Tholos or Sudatio GT34, which is circular and covered by a dome with an oculus. It has two niches in which frescoes can still be seen depicting curtains.

To the north side of the Tholos is the Caldarium GT30 with two basins for hot water. On the opposite side are two large rooms covered by a barrel vault with a series of holes which were made by metal hunters.

Further towards the Canopus is a second, larger Caldarium GT38, also with two basins for hot water. It is close to another room where once was one of the few well-preserved frescoes of the Villa.

From the portico of the gymnasium GT1, corridor GT3 lead to GT11, where large multi-seater latrine was located. From there a series of subterranean corridors was acessed: GT33, 36, 41 and 42 where the furnaces for heating the water were located. In room GT39 environment the praefurnium is still visible.
This route was connected to other subterranean service corridors which started from the Hundred Chambers and also served the Small Bath (see Chapter of Vestibule Subterranean Corridors)

The Great Baths are entirely paved in white mosaic without decoration, framed by one or more black bands.

Fragment of the stucco ceiling in room GT21

Function and meaning
The simple white mosaics with black bands, the squared architecture and the multiple latrines prove that the Great Baths were the thermal facility intended for the staff and the slaves of the Villa.

This observation denies the "urban legend" which claims that the Great Baths were intended for men while the Small Baths would have been reserved for women. This is because Hadrian had established that there was a separation of the sexes in the thermal plants of Rome.

Actually the users of the two thermal plants differed by rank, not by sex, as proven by their decoration and architecture.
Luxury, complex architecture, opus sectile floors and a single latrine in the Small Baths. Simple architecture, spartan decoration, white mosaic and multiple latrine in the Great Baths.

SEE: Marina De Franceschini, Villa Adriana - Mosaici, pavimenti, edifici. Roma 1991, pp. 254-283 e 548-553 with previous bibliography

Bibliografia

Hülsen 1910; Dehn 1913, pp. 396-399 fol 1 (n. 3), fol 87 (n. 192 e 194) e fol 90 (n. 198); Wadsworth 1924, pp. 44-95; Mirick 1933 pp. 119-126, tav. 4-12; Zorzi 1959: pp. 15-23 e 99-100, figg. 244-246; Smith 1978, pp. 73-93; de Vos 1985, pp. 350-380 (p. 359 fig. 281 e 287 su V.A.), Lolli Ghetti 1994, pp. 173-196; Salza Prina Ricotti 1994 pp. 77-110; Di Mento 2000, pp. 37-61; Verdiani - Tioli 2008: pp. 564-570; De Franceschini 2016.