Villa Giulia is an ancient Roman imperial villa or palace on the north tip of the island of Ventotene (ancient name: Pandateria) which lies between the Campania and Lazio regions of Italy. [1]
The huge villa complex of over 3,000 m2 area included thermae (thermal baths), terraces, gardens, an exedra and aqueducts.
Emperor Augustus had this villa built in the early part of his reign as a summer palace. [2] Its maritime climate was pleasant and the land was flatter than nearby islands, making construction easier. [3]
It became known as Villa Giulia as it was the place of exile [4] of Augustus’s daughter Julia the Elder in 2 BC, as a reaction to her excessive adultery. [5] Ventotene, like all the Pontine Islands, was exclusively owned by the Emperor; he could therefore easily keep an eye on her. Augustus had two villas on the island; Julia was probably sent to the one located on the Punta d'Eolo, on the north of the island, with all the facilities of an imperial retreat. [6]
Later, in 29 AD, emperor Tiberius banished Augustus' granddaughter Agrippina the Elder, who perished, probably of malnutrition, in 33 AD. After Agrippina the Elder's son Caligula became emperor in 37 AD, he went to Ventotene to collect her remains and reverently brought them back to Rome. Her youngest daughter, Julia Livilla, was exiled here twice: the first time by her brother Caligula for plotting to depose him, and the second time by her uncle, the emperor Claudius, at the instigation of his wife, Messalina, in 41 AD.
Sometime later, Julia Livilla was discreetly starved to death and her remains probably brought back to Rome when her older sister Agrippina the Younger became influential as Claudius' wife. Another distinguished lady of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, Claudia Octavia, who was the first wife of the emperor Nero, was banished to Ventotene in 62 AD and then executed on his orders. [7]
This is also the island to where emperor Vespasian banished his granddaughter Flavia Domitilla.
Over the centuries, the villa has been subject to systematic plundering and senseless excavations that destroyed many of the walls. Extraction of tuff in tunnels on the shore caused edges of the villa above to collapse.
Ventotene has numerous remains of Roman buildings around the island; those of the ancient port near to the villa can be seen at Punto Eolo at the entrance to the modern port.
The villa occupied most of the peninsula of Punto Eolo, extending over an area of 300x100 m. The urban complex included the Imperial villa, the port, the fishery [8] and water cisterns. [9] The villa itself had three main sectors:
The baths are well preserved, with calidarium, tepidarium, and frigidarium which had a splendid view over the sea and built in opus reticulatum that dates to the early Augustan era.
As there were no natural springs on the island, rain water had to be collected in cisterns and two huge ones covering 700 m2 and over 1200 m2 were built further south on the island, today called the Cistern di Villa Stefania and that of the Prisoners on the north-west. [10] [11]
The baths are the best preserved part of the villa and are near to the residential area, along the edge of the cliffs where erosion has caused parts of the buildings to collapse. They are laid out on a different axis than the garden area. They included several pools and had a monumental stairway down to the sea.
The large baths included a suite of heated rooms: after the apodyterium (the dressing room) were the heated rooms, the tepidarium and the calidarium. Most notable of several pools is a grand semi-circular piscina calida (hot pool), with a novel and complex heating system on several levels, and the largest example in the ancient world. [12] Of a later date, the calidarium had an exedra on its smallest side and was not aligned with the piscina calida, suggesting it was a later hot pool.
To heat such a large piscina calida, three tunnels for stokers led to circular furnace rooms, higher than the tunnels and where a tuff wall prevented fumes from entering the tunnels. Heat rose from the furnaces through three openings into the hypocaust above between the suspended floor of the pool and a subfloor.
In a rare example of the use of metal in a Roman heating system, above each of the three furnaces was a so-called samovar , a domed metal plate supported by brick pilae on the sides, and which was part of the pool floor and in direct contact with the water. The hypocaust was also unusual in using metal verticals and grids to free the heating space from brick obstacles and increase circulation of hot air improving the heating of the pool floor. [13]
The use of metal and iron which were only used in Roman times in buildings where the high cost for this type of advanced technology could be borne or justified in terms of cultural prestige, as in imperial buildings, shows the exceptional quality of the baths.
Excavation campaigns began in 1990 and lasted to 2005. The main areas excavated include the so-called 'Cistern of Villa Stefania', the so-called 'Cistern of Prisoners' and the thermal baths of the residential complex. [14]
Agrippina "the Elder" was a prominent member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty. She was the daughter of Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa and Augustus' daughter, Julia the Elder. Her brothers Lucius and Gaius Caesar were the adoptive sons of Augustus, and were his heirs until their deaths in AD 2 and 4, respectively. Following their deaths, her second cousin Germanicus was made the adoptive son of Tiberius, Augustus' stepson, as part of Augustus' succession scheme in the adoptions of AD 4. As a result of the adoption, Agrippina was wed to Germanicus in order to bring him closer to the Julian family.
Julia Agrippina, also referred to as Agrippina the Younger, was Roman empress from 49 to 54 AD, the fourth wife and niece of Emperor Claudius, and the mother of Nero.
The Julio-Claudian dynasty comprised the first five Roman emperors: Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero.
Antonia Minor was the younger of two surviving daughters of Mark Antony and Octavia Minor. She was a niece of the Emperor Augustus, sister-in-law of the Emperor Tiberius, paternal grandmother of the Emperor Caligula and Empress Agrippina the Younger, mother of the Emperor Claudius, and maternal great-grandmother of the Emperor Nero. She outlived her husband Drusus, her oldest son, her daughter, and several of her grandchildren.
Julia is the nomen of various women of the family Julii Caesares, a branch of the gens Julia, one of the most ancient patrician houses at ancient Rome.
Claudia Livia was the only daughter of Nero Claudius Drusus and Antonia Minor and sister to Roman Emperor Claudius and general Germanicus, and thus paternal aunt of emperor Caligula and maternal great-aunt of emperor Nero, as well as the niece and daughter-in-law of Tiberius. She was named after her grandmother, Augustus' wife Livia Drusilla, and commonly known by her family nickname Livilla. She was born after Germanicus and before Claudius.
Drusus Caesar was the adopted grandson and heir of the Roman emperor Tiberius, alongside his brother Nero. Born into the prominent Julio-Claudian dynasty, Drusus was the son of Tiberius' general and heir, Germanicus. After the deaths of his father and of Tiberius' son, Drusus the Younger, Drusus and his brother Nero Caesar were adopted together by Tiberius in September AD 23. As a result of being heirs of the emperor, he and his brother enjoyed accelerated political careers.
Ventotene is one of the Pontine Islands in the Tyrrhenian Sea, 46 kilometres off the coast of Gaeta right at the border between Lazio and Campania, Italy. The municipality of Ventotene, of the province of Latina (Lazio) had 708 permanent residents as of 2008.
Nero Julius Caesar was the adopted grandson and heir of the Roman Emperor Tiberius, alongside his brother Drusus. Born into the prominent Julio-Claudian dynasty, Nero was the son of Tiberius' general and heir, Germanicus. After the deaths of his father and of Tiberius' son, Drusus the Younger, Nero and his brother Drusus were adopted together by Tiberius in September AD 23. As a result of being heirs of the emperor, he and his brother enjoyed accelerated political careers.
Vipsania Julia Agrippina nicknamed Julia Minor and called Julia the Younger by modern historians, was a Roman noblewoman of the Julio-Claudian dynasty. She was emperor Augustus' first granddaughter, being the first daughter and second child of Julia the Elder and her husband Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa. Along with her siblings, Julia was raised and educated by her maternal grandfather Augustus and her maternal step-grandmother Livia Drusilla. Just like her siblings, she played an important role in the dynastic plans of Augustus, but much like her mother, she was disgraced due to infidelity later on in her life.
Julia Livilla was the youngest child of Germanicus and Agrippina the Elder and the youngest sister of the Emperor Caligula.
The Pontine Islands are an archipelago in the Tyrrhenian Sea off the coast of Lazio region, Italy. The islands were collectively named after the largest island in the group, Ponza. The other islands in the archipelago are Palmarola, Zannone, and Gavi to the northwest and Ventotene and Santo Stefano to the southeast. These two groups are separated by 22 nautical miles (41 km). From Sabaudia-Cape Circeo peninsula to Zannone the distance is 12 nautical miles (22 km), while Ventotene faces Gaeta. The minimum distance between Santo Stefano and the isle of Ischia is 22 nautical miles (41 km).
A caldarium was a room with a hot plunge bath, used in a Roman bath complex.
Pomponia Graecina was a noble Roman woman of the 1st century who was related to the Julio-Claudian dynasty. She was the wife of Aulus Plautius, the general who led the Roman conquest of Britain in 43 AD, and was renowned as one of the few people who dared to publicly mourn the death of a kinswoman killed by the Imperial family. It has been speculated that she was an early Christian. She is identified by some as Lucina or Lucy, a saint honoured by the Roman Catholic Church.
The Aqua Augusta, or Serino Aqueduct was one of the largest, most complex and costliest aqueduct systems in the Roman world; it supplied water to at least eight ancient cities in the Bay of Naples including Pompeii and Herculaneum. This aqueduct was unlike any other of its time, being a regional network rather than being focused on one urban centre.
The Piscina Mirabilis is an Ancient Roman cistern on the Bacoli hill at the western end of the Gulf of Naples, southern Italy. It ranks as one of the largest ancient cisterns for drinkable water built by the ancient Romans - if not the most impressive - though comparably smaller in size and grandeur than the largest Roman reservoir, the Yerebatan Sarayi in Istanbul, Turkey, built in the 6th century AD during the reign of Byzantine Emperor Justinian I, as is evidenced by De Feo et al.
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