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Course: Ancient Mediterranean + Europe > Unit 9
Lesson 8: Middle empire- The Pantheon
- The Pantheon
- Pantheon
- Bronze head from a statue of the Emperor Hadrian
- Hadrian's Villa, Tivoli: A virtual tour
- Hadrian, The imperial palace, Tivoli
- Maritime Theatre at Hadrian's Villa, Tivoli
- Rome's layered history: the Castel Sant'Angelo
- Pair of Centaurs Fighting Cats of Prey from Hadrian's Villa, Tivoli
- Hadrian, Building the wall
- Hadrian’s Wall
- Empire: Medea Sarcophagus
- Equestrian Sculpture of Marcus Aurelius
- Equestrian Sculpture of Marcus Aurelius
- Equestrian Sculpture of Marcus Aurelius
- The importance of the archaeological findspot: The Lullingstone Busts
- Julia Domna’s Portraits
- The Arch of Septimius Severus, portal to ancient Rome
- The Severan Tondo: Damnatio Memoriae in ancient Rome
- Damnatio memoriae—Roman sanctions against memory
- Baths of Caracalla
- Severan marble plan (Forma Urbis Romae)
- Ludovisi Battle Sarcophagus
- Ludovisi Battle Sarcophagus
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Maritime Theatre at Hadrian's Villa, Tivoli
Maritime Theatre at Hadrian's Villa, Tivoli, Villa begun in 117 C.E. A conversation with Dr. Bernard Frischer and Dr. Beth Harris. Created by Beth Harris and Steven Zucker.
Want to join the conversation?
- Why was the moat built? Privacy? Defense?(10 votes)
- Probably more of the former than the latter. Also, the aesthetic it provides!(11 votes)
- 3:36What is an antiquarium? If I heard correctly what he said...(4 votes)
- He actually said antiquarium. It means a place where antiquities are kept.(10 votes)
- I've never heard of the terms "tablinum" and "impluvium." From the diagram, an impluvium appears to be a pool of some sort. But what is a tablinum? Also, about how large was the bedroom space? It's hard to tell from the diagram. And where did Hadrian sleep?(4 votes)
- @0:53Beth says a tablinum is a kind of office or meeting space. An impluvium is a pool of rain water in the middle of an open-rooved atrium (a sort of courtyard/sitting room).(4 votes)
- Did the moat have a circulating of the water to keep mosquitoes and algae from forming?(2 votes)
- No. In the video there was a lot of algae in the water. And I don't think the Romans knew how to do that yet.(1 vote)
- I didn't understand who build it actually?Was it the emperor him self?(1 vote)
- Hadrian says he was an architect, but he was the emperor, so he probably had some helpers.(3 votes)
- What happened to Steven Zucker? The past few videos he hasn't been in!(1 vote)
- He answered one of my questions yesterday.(2 votes)
- I've visited the Villa D'Este and the incredible fountains and hydraulic systems that propelled them. Was Hadrian's Villa the inspiration for Villa D'Este? And what influence do you think Hadrian's Villa had on the architects of generations that followed?(1 vote)
- At3:02there is a partial column that looks like it was concrete with a superficial covering. Does anybody have any insight on this? How many structures were a facade of this type vs. being solid marble or granite?(1 vote)
- Afaik, most Roman imperial buildings after August if they had marble, it was only a cosmetic layer of it over a concrete or, maybe, brick base. Romans were more pragmatic than Greeks, who had made buildings of sheer marble.(1 vote)
- I may be wrong but at2:45isn't that Greek columns? Greek columns has the lines.(1 vote)
- They are Ionic columns, some with fluting, some without, if i'm not mistaken.(2 votes)
- 0:38and4:18What website can i get that animation from?(1 vote)
- it was probably from http://idialab.org/virtual-hadrians-villa/, which is now a virtual site of Hadrian's villa; designed by Dr. Frischer.(1 vote)
Video transcript
(jazz music) Dr. Harris: This is a place
no one would have been unless you were really
close to the emperor. We're in the so-called Maritime Theatre, but this is really Hadrian's inner sanctum inside his enormous villa complex. Dr. Frischer: It's a circular
version of the Roman house. You have an atrium,
even with an impluvium. You have bedrooms off one side. You have a tablinum at
the end of the main axis. It's a classic Roman
house, but as a circle, instead of as a square or rectangle. Dr. Harris: I'm going to
unpack that a little bit. Dr. Fischer: Okay. Dr. Harris: We have the
axiality of a Roman house. Dr. Frischer: Yes. Dr. Harris: We have a view
from outside into the interior toward the atrium, which
would've been open to the sky and would've collected water
into a impluvium below, through a slanted roof or compluvium. Then, behind there a
tablinum, a kind of office or meeting space, but
in the form of a circle. It takes something which was a rectangle and encircles it by a moat. As we look toward the end through the axis that Hadrian aligned for
us, our eye moves past a shape that we don't expect in ancient Roman architecture, an
oval space surrounded by columns. Dr. Frischer: Hadrian had the
idea of having this circle and then breaking the space
up into smaller parts. He inevitably generated
ovals and we can see ovals or fragments of ovals all throughout. We know that this was seen by Ligorio in the 16th century,
who surveyed the site. Cardinal Barberini had
Contini publish the notes and plan of Ligorio, so this was known just at the beginnings
of the Baroque movement in Roman architecture in the city of Rome with people like Borromini. Dr. Harris: Circular
buildings were something that Hadrian loved. This is the same size as the Pantheon and he's building this the
same time that he's building the Pantheon. This idea of the totality of
the empire, or the totality of the world in the figure of the emperor. Dr. Frischer: The circle, according to the ancient philosophers was the perfect form. There was nothing more
perfect than a circle or a sphere. I think that appealed to him
and then just the challenge of taking that rectangular form of a house and making it circular
must have appealed to him on aesthetic grounds. Dr. Harris: If we look at
the floor of the Pantheon or the walls of the Pantheon
at the marble revetments, we see circles and squares, these basic geometric shapes - Dr. Frischer: Yes, in a
creative sort of conflict giving rise to new forms. Dr. Harris: Hadrian seems
to have really wanted his privacy. Dr. Frischer: Yes, looking
back at imperial history, he knew that there were a
lot of attempts on lives of emperors, but just in general, emperors were always being pestered wherever they went. There's an anecdote about Hadrian while he was traveling. A woman stopped to
petition him and he said, "I'm sorry, I don't have
time, I'm too busy." Then she said, "Well
then stop being emperor." Emperors were expected to be available and here he could get
away and he could invite just the people that he wanted to be with, whether for business purposes or social. Dr. Harris: So we have
bedrooms here, toilets. There are rooms for bathing that you would step down into,
so they'd be at the level of the moat. As you sat in the bathwater,
you could look out at the water around. Dr. Frischer: You could
push your duck over into the moat. (laughter) Dr. Harris: It's hard
to imagine how luxurious this was now, but as
we look up, we can see where this place got the
name that it has now, because we see relief
sculpture with marine figures and mythological figures
having to do with the water. Dr. Frischer: There are
some pieces preserved here, on the entablature, and even better pieces in the antiquarium on the site. Dr. Harris: It's a modest scale. This isn't enormous. It really feels like a retreat. Dr. Frischer: I think that
everything Hadrian did is on the human level. I always say to people when
they get to the Pantheon, "Stop on the threshold, hold
your head straight ahead, "and you can just see in
your peripheral vision "the oculus, the floor, and
the sides of the rotunda." It's at the limits of the human. Here this is a more
intimate, comfortable space. Hadrian was always dealing
in spaces with a lot of pomp and circumstance
and very formal and stiff. So here, it was on a
scale of a smallish house in Pompeii, a middle class kind of house, so he could really feel,
I think, more relaxed. Dr. Harris: So, an informal
place for the emperor of Rome. Dr. Frischer: Informal,
but we shouldn't say not luxurious, because it's
all marble, it's all carved, it's expensive materials,
and the workmanship and craftsmanship is of the highest level. The fact that it's small doesn't mean there's any sacrifice in quality. Who knows what sculpture was here and what the fittings were,
what the furniture was? He could've trumped the
smallness of the space with the lavishness of
materials and the craftsmanship of those materials. Dr. Harris: Something
tells me that was the case. (jazz music)