Start to discover the world of Villa Adriana with its magnificent architecture, which defies the centuries and millennia.

In this section you will find a brief description of the buildings of Villa Adriana, which we have divided topographically into seven different areas,. See in the Topographic Index, with numbers that correspond to those of the General Plan with the geographical coordinates.

Then there is an Alphabetical Index of the buildings, with their traditional denominations.

The names of the buildings were created over the centuries and are often fictitious, but we have no evidence to understand which was their original name.

Since the time of Pirro Ligorio, scholars have tried to identify the names of the ancient places that Hadrian gave to some of the buildings in his villa. Many of them invented new names, such as Francesco Contini or Giovan Battista Piranesi or Antonio Nibby.

We have kept those traditional names because if we talk about Maritime Theater or the Hall of the Pholosophers or the Academy, everyone knows which building we are referring to. Creating new names only leads to confusion.

The descriptions of the buildings are those of the previous site which was dates way back in 2005. They will gradually be updated to provide more recent information, including the discoveries and studies of recent years.

The building files are accompanied by some plants taken from the author's book "Villa Adriana. Mosaici,  Pavimenti, Edifici». The plans show the building techniques, the type of pavement and wall revetment. Other plans are taken with kind permission from the General Plan of the Villa of Michael Ytterberg.

Then there are pictures of the buildings, aerial or satellite views, and three-dimensional reconstructions with images taken from the Gismondi Plastic Model in the Villa. Other reconstructions by scholars such as Bernard Frischer and Matthew Brennan of the Digital Hadrian's Villa Project.

All images are by the author, all rights reserved, and please give credits if you use them. For other people's images and plans, the name of author is always specified.