VILLA ADRIANA - THE UNKNOWN GYMNASIUM

✅ The Gymnasium (Palestra) is located between the Greek Theater and the Fede Nymphaeum, and was excavated in the years from 2000 until 2015. It was never open to the public, and has several buildings that in the eighteenth century were transformed into farmhouses by count Giuseppe Fede.

✅ In the sixteenth century Pirro Ligorio found four busts of red marble, crowned with wild olive: believing that they depicted Athletes, he gave the building the name "Gymnasium".

✅ Actually the busts depicted priests of the cult of the Egyptian goddess Isis, as confirmed by a colossal head of the goddess, which was also found there by Ligorio. Recent excavations discovered a statue of the Sphinx and one of the Horus falcon, which confirm the Egyptian iconography of this area of ​​the Villa.

✅ The largest building of the Gymnasium stands on two concentric Cryptoporticoes, which for centuries were used as warehouses or tool sheds. The Cryptoporticoes served as a substructure for a double porch on the upper floor, which was paved with colored marbles; it had two rows of staggered pillars with niches for statues, which surrounded a large central square.  

✅ The excavations of 2005-2015, by Zaccaria Mari with the Archaeological Superintendence of Lazio, have brought to light another previously unknown building. It has a monumental marble-clad stair which led up to a large Hypostyle hall, with scattered fragments of columns and the remains of precious opus sectile floors.

✅ It is likely that the Hypostyle Hall was a shrine dedicated to the goddess Isis. Like the Iseum of Pompeii, it is in fact located near a theater, the Greek Theater, in which sacred performances related to his cult could take place.

‼️ The cult of Isis in the “Gymnasium” of Villa Adriana