The facetted dome of this sham grotto, the Serapaeum, once resounded to the rushing of artificial torrents, gurgling fountains and cascades: a sensuous interior water world surrounding a podium where the Emperor Hadrian and his friends once reclined to dine. Called a triclinium nymphaeum (literally: “dining room as fountain”) it is part of the villa the emperor built at Tivoli, outside Rome between 118-134 CE – as a vast memory palace, with many of its buildings representing places in the Roman Empire he’d visited. This sumptuous pleasure dome, fronted by a canal, had very personal significance for the Emperor. It was associated with the River Nile, where his lover Antinous had drowned. And among the sculptures of a crocodile and pseudo-Egyptian statues excavated, one of Antinous was found, dressed as the figure of Osiris, God of the Upper Nile, who dies and is reborn. So hope, not just water, sprang eternal here too. I (rgw)
Giambattista Piranesi, “Remains of the Temple of the God Canopus in Hadrian's Villa at Tivoli” (from “Views of Rome”). (Image courtesy Giorgio Cini Foundation, Venice, the Cabinet of Drawings and Prints)
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