Marina De Franceschini - Giuseppe Veneziano
VILLA ADRIANA. ARCHITETTURA CELESTE. I SEGRETI DEI SOLSTIZI
ITALIAN LANGUAGE ONLY
Hadrian's Villa is the largest and most complex Roman imperial villa that has survived to this day, one of the architectural masterpieces of all times. There is no comparison: even the most sumptuous European palaces such as Versailles, Caserta or Windsor cannot stand the comparison because they are much smaller.
Hadrian's Villa has about thirty different buildings scattered across grandiose artificial esplanades arranged as gardens, for a total of 120 hectares, as much as Pompeii and more.
The Villa was built in just a few years starting in 117 AD, the year when Hadrian ascended to the throne. He chose Tivoli, which is only 30 km from Rome because for centuries had been a place of vacation for Roman aristocrats. He chose it because of the beauty of the landscape with the Aniene waterfalls and for the abundance of water, tuff and pozzolana, the basic materials for building.
With this book you will discover a building that no one knows about, the Accademia, which is still privately owned and has never been open to the public.
The author was able to study and survey it several years ago, so you will see unpublished images of extraordinary buildings that very few people can see for real, such as the Temple of Apollo, a vast circular hall 13 meters in diameter, once covered by a dome.
The Temple of di Apollo in the Accademia
The Temple of Apollo was instead seen, drawn and described by some of the greatest artists and architects of the Renaissance, such as Francesco di Giorgio Martini, Andrea Palladio and Pirro Ligorio.
The Accademia stands on the Accademia Esplanade, which was the highest artificial esplanade of the Villa, and was accessed by a ramp that can still be seen today neat the building of Roccabruna, which is located in the state-owned area and is only partially open to visitors.
In the book you will see unpublished photos of the large inner circular hall of Roccabruna, which is always closed to the public, and other inaccessible areas.
The book traces the history of the discovery of these two buildings, starting from 1450, with the excavations, studies and findings of sculptures and mosaics of extraordinary beauty.
The Mosaic if the Doves, found in the Accademia
And then it explains their astronomical orientation, which was discovered by the authors, which creates illuminations similar to those we all know at Stonehenge in England, Abu Simbel in Egypt or Chichen Itzà in Mexico.
The illuminations – such as the Blade of Light on the front cover – are seen on the days of the Summer and Winter solstices. This discovery showed that the Accademia Esplanade of the was the sacred area of the Villa, its true Acropolis, higher and closer to divinity, and so we were able to reconstruct its hidden and mysterious symbolic meaning.
You will discover and see Villa Adriana, Accademia and Roccabruna in a new Light.
INDEX
Parte I - Giuseppe Veneziano, Il Cielo sulla Terra:
1.
L’uomo, la Spiritualità, il Cielo; 2. Il cielo quale origine e
destinazione della natura umana; 3. Roma, la filosofia greca e
l'astrologia; 4. Roma e l'astronomia; 5. Templum in coelo, templum in terra. Astronomia nei riti di fondazione; 6. Astronomia e architettura antica; 7. L'astronomia nelle festività del calendario romano.
Parte II - M. De Franceschini, Villa Adriana:
8. Archeoastronomia romana: i precedenti;: Horologium Augusti, Domus Aurea, Pantheon.
9. Villa Adriana; 10. Accademia; 11. Roccabruna;
Parte III - Conclusioni:
12. M. De Franceschini, Archeoastronomia a Villa Adriana: significato simbolico
13. G. Veneziano, Orientamenti astronomici a Villa Adriana;
Parte IV - Appendice
Parte V - Bibliografia e indici.