Auditorium di Mecenate - Rome, Italy
N 41° 53.648 E 012° 30.096
33T E 292738 N 4641040
This monument was brought to light in 1874 during the excavations required by the town-planning scheme for the Esquiline quarter.
Waymark Code: WMPR0P
Location: Lazio, Italy
Date Posted: 10/10/2015
Views: 2
It consists of a hall with an apse built at the end of the Republican Age on a tract of the Servian Walls and inserted within the rampart behind them. It presents four parts: a vestibule facing southeast, consisting of a sort of rectangular hall, the real hall and the exedra-shaped (semicircular) stands with a radius of about 17 feet. It was part of the Gardens of Maecenas.
It probably is a summer triclinium, in other words a hall used for feasts made more pleasant by water effects. The water flowed over the steps that lead to the apsis into a lower central channel. This feature seems to be confirmed also by the decorations painted on the hall, that date back to the beginning of the first century AD. The sides of the walls are decorated with motifs of branched candlesticks and peafowls on a red background; the niches on the hall and onthe apsis are decorated with scenes of gardens with plants, flowers and birds that give the illusion of windows open on green spaces. A black frieze with paintings of Dionysian subjects runs above the niches in the rectangular room. The building must have had a vaulted roof. The thresholds of the niches and the stands of the exedra were covered with marble slabs.
We know from Suetonius that the Roman emperor , Augustus , when ill, often slept in the house of Maecenas. After the death of Maecenas ( 8 BC ), the villa was attached to the imperial properties and then given to Tiberius after returning from his exile in Rhodes.
Most Relevant Historical Period: Roman Republic 509 B.C. - 27 B.C.
Opening days/times:
Open to organized groups by reservation only.
Web Site: [Web Link]
Condition: Partly intact or reconstructed
Admission Fee: Not listed
|
Visit Instructions:
A complete sentence or two or an uploaded photo taken by the waymarker will be required in the log to confirm that the logger is participating in the hobby in good faith. Logs of only a few words like "Visited it" without an original photo are subject to deletion.
Recent Visits/Logs:
| There are no logs for this waymark yet. |
|
|
|