Is Hadrian's Villa Reborn down?

Take a virtual tour of the Stadium Garden at Hadrian’s Villa, the World Heritage Site located in Tivoli, Italy (30 km from Rome). Hadrian ruled as emperor from 117 to 138 of our era. This was the period when the Roman empire was at its peak in terms of culture, economic development, and military security. An enthusiastic builder and patron of the arts, Hadrian developed the villa throughout his reign. Known today as Hadrian’s Villa, the place was a government retreat where the emperor and his court could pursue the everyday tasks of administering the vast empire while also enjoying leisure activities such as bathing, banqueting, hunting, taking recreational walks (ambulationes), attending the theater, and even watching gladiators fight in a private arena. Lavishly decorated with sculpture, gardens, and fountains of all kinds, the villa was a delight to the eye of the ancient visitor. Today, the villa is in ruins. Some of its many major buildings are well preserved, while others have been reduced to their foundations—often invisible below the modern surface. This virtual tour presents the Stadium Garden. “Stadium Garden” is the modern name for a major complex at Hadrian’s Villa that, despite what we conventionally call it, was neither a stadium nor a garden. Instead, it consisted of structures used in warm weather to host imperial audiences, receptions, dinner parties, and ambulationes. The virtual tour takes you back in time to the 130s CE so that you can visit the site reconstructed as it appeared late in the reign of Hadrian. Along the way, you can also go up into the air to see the villa in the context of the enchanting landscape of the Tivoli area. Your guide is Prof. Bernard Frischer, Director of the Digital Hadrian’s Villa Project. As you follow your curiosity and explore the highly accurate 3D reconstruction, you can play audio tracks in which Prof. Frischer explains what you are seeing and how the place was used in Hadrian’s day. Learn about imperial a...