Descriptions, plans, pictures, reconstructions and much more.
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 , 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.
1 - Area of the Greek Theater
2 - Area of the Golden Square (Piazza d'Oro)
3 - Area of the Imperial Palace
4 - Area
of the Imperial residence
5 - Area of the Canopus
6 - Area
of the
Accademia
7 - Subterranean road network
Then there is an Alphabetical Index of the buildings, with their traditional names.
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 kept those traditional names because if we talk about Maritime Theater or the Hall of the Pholosophers or the Accademia, everyone knows which building we are referring to. Creating new names only leads to confusion.
Since this website was created in 2005,
the descriptions of the buildings have been updated to provide more recent information, including the discoveries and studies of recent years.
Each building has a catalogue entry with two types of plans:
– Restored plans taken from the General Plan of the Villa designed by architect Michael Ytterberg, with the building number (with kind permission).
– Thematic plans taken from the author's book «Villa Adriana. Mosaici, pavimenti, edifici» with the numbering of the rooms and the indication of the type of pavement.
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 are made by scholars such as Bernard Frischer and Matthew Brennan of the Digital Hadrian's Villa Project or architect Michael Ytterberg.
All images are by the author, all rights reserved, and please give credits if you use them. For images and plans of other authors, their name is always quoted.
©MarinaDeFranceschini - Progetto Accademia