The Villa of the Quintilii (Italian: Villa dei Quintili) is a monumental ancient Roman villa situated along the Via Appia Antica just beyond the fifth milestone from Rome, Italy.
The remains of this villa suburbana are so impressive in size and area that before they were first excavated the site was called Roma Vecchia ("Old Rome") by the locals as it seemed to have been at least a town and its history was unknown.[1] The villa included extensive thermal baths and a nymphaeum both fed by its own aqueduct.
A grand terrace overlooking the Via Appia Nuova (which dates to 1784), beyond which the villa's grounds had extended, commands a fine view of the Castelli Romani district.
The site became state property only in the 1980's since when archaeology has begun to discover the detailed layout and functions of parts of the villa. Today the archaeological site includes a museum[2] exhibiting exquisite marble friezes and sculptures that once adorned the villa.
History
The nucleus of the villa built by the rich and cultured Quintilii brothers Sextus Quintilius Valerius Maximus (proconsul of Asia in 168 AD[3]) and Sextus Quintilius Condianus (consuls in 151 AD)[4] in the time of Hadrian (r.117-134), as shown by brick stamps found during the excavations of the reception rooms in 1984-87.[5]
The emperor Commodus (r.177-192) coveted the villa so much that he put to death its owners in 182 and confiscated it for himself.[6] Commodus and subsequent emperors then extended and embellished the estate.
Discovery and excavations
Braschi Aphrodite (Aphrodite of Knidos) from the villa, Glyptothek - MunichBoy with the Goose from the villa, Louvre
In 1776 Gavin Hamilton, the entrepreneurial painter and purveyor of Roman antiquities, excavated some parts of the Villa, still called "Roma Vecchia", and the sculptures he uncovered revealed the imperial nature of the site:
A considerable ruin is seen near this last upon the right hand, and is generally considered to have been the ruins of a Villa of Domitian's nurse. The fragments of Collossal Statues found near this ruin confirms me in this opinion, the excellent sculptour strengthens this supposition...[7]
There he found five exceptional marble sculptures, including an "Adonis asleep",[8] that he sold to Charles Townley and later came to the British Museum, and a "Bacchante with the tyger", listed as sold to Mr Greville.[9] The large marble relief of Asclepius found at the site passed from Hamilton to the Earl of Shelburne, later Marquess of Lansdowne, at Lansdowne House, London.[10]
Several excavation campaigns were undertaken between 1783 and 1792 by order of Pius VI, with the aim of enriching the Pio-Clementino Museum, founded by his predecessor Clement XIV. Among the most famous sculptures discovered in this period, currently preserved in the Vatican Museums, the Glyptothek of Monaco and in the Louvre and private collections are the so-called Braschi Aphrodite and two executions of the Boy with the Goose. Of this group, a Christian alabaster coming from the excavations of 1792 and formerly in the Kircherian Museum, was donated to the modern Antiquarium of the Villa.
With the passage of the estate to the Torlonia family in 1797, systematic excavations were resumed to enrich the family's private collection. Between 1828 and 1829 the excavations were conducted by Antonio Nibby (who also made a topographical survey of the archaeological finds of the estate at that time), concentrated around the most evident ruins between the thermal baths and the so-called Maritime Theatre. Among other things, two columns in Cipollino marble emerged from these searches, which Valadier used for the new facade of the Tordinona Theatre, also owned by the Torlonia family.
During the 1920s new discoveries were made completely by chance: the large headless statues of Apollo the Citharist and Artemis, today in the National Roman Museum at Palazzo Massimo, and in 1929 the remains of a villa at km 7 of the Appian Way where the quality of the sculptures found led to it being considered pertinent to the Villa dei Quintili.
In 1998 - 2000 a campaign of systematic interventions was conducted (promoted by the Superintendence of Archaeological Heritage of Rome) aimed at further exploring and making the main features of the villa visitable. On this occasion, new rooms of the private residential area and part of the reception area emerged, and the interconnection between the various spaces became more evident.
Excavation campaigns between 2002 and 2009 brought to light a large portion of the porticoed gardens, another large part of the reception area and the rooms of the tepidarium between the two thermal rooms of the calidarium and the frigidarium. Between the Appia and the central area, the ends of the xystus were excavated, almost 300 m long. The statue of Niobe in the antiquarium comes from the large nymphaeum on the Appia Antica.[11]
In 2018, new excavations uncovered an extravagant and extraordinary winery and triclinium which features marble-clad instead of opus signinum treading areas and a distribution system with fountains of wine that flowed from the production spaces down into the cellar.[12] The facility has equipment normally found in ancient Roman wineries,[13] but the level of decoration and theatre indicate that it served a more unusual purpose of conspicuous production and potential vintage ritual for the elite of imperial Roman society.[14]Triclinia (dining rooms) with wide entrances surrounded this winery area on three sides, their walls and floors covered in elaborate opus sectile with exotic marbles in geometrical patterns, indicating that the emperor entertained here around the theatrical spectacle of wine production. It is similar to the ceremonial winery of the imperial Villa Magna in Latium. It is dated to the reign of Gordian III (r. 238-244 AD).[15]
The site
The villa's earliest residential and reception areas of the Quintilii brothers are dated to the first decades of the 2nd century between the Hadrianic era and the reign of Marcus Aurelius. The various sectors of the villa were architecturally arranged on different levels connected by courtyards and gardens enclosed by porticoed corridors. The gardens were furnished with ornamental vegetable species and basins with water jets, of which a square-shaped example remains.[16]
Public “reception” sector
This sector belongs to the original nucleus of the villa and the magnificence of the marble coverings still in place indicates that these rooms were a sumptuous reception area where the owners received guests.[17]
The large courtyard (36 x 12 m) was similar to the western sector of Nero's Domus Aurea[18] and used as a meeting and discussion place similar to a small forum. It has Cipollino marble paving still intact and had a portico on one of the long sides. The main reception rooms are its north side and the main room was an octagonal tower with panorama over the rest of the residential part and connected to the upper level of the garden/amphitheatre. It was enlarged and renovated under Commodus. It had a domed roof and four open entrances, each with a vaulted passage, and was heated by a hypocaust. It is probable that this room was used as a winter triclinium (banquet hall) or at least as a discussion area, from which it was possible to observe the landscape towards the valley and any visitors in the open courtyard below. This reception area was on the upper level and connected to the service rooms below (only partially excavated) by a porticoed corridor the walls of which were decorated with marble slabs and lintels in greco scritto and rosso antico.[19]
To the west of this area was a large circular summer triclinium which in the age of Commodus led to the theatre and of which there was a privileged view to the stage. The nearby rooms between the baths and the theatre have been arranged around this with radial and tangential walls, giving rise to irregular resulting spaces. Many are small but luxurious rooms for receiving and lodging guests and several have exceptionally well preserved polychrome mosaic floors with various decorative motifs, both black and white and coloured, all of which date to the 2nd century. One of the best rooms still has an opus sectile floor made of Palombino, slate, and giallo antico marble, with remains of wall frescos and a hypocaust heating system showing it was used in winter.[20]
The corridor between the baths and the theatre had a mosaic floor with small polychrome crosses, but was occupied in the late Roman era by a double-chamber furnace used to melt and recycle glass and piles of recycled glass were found in a corner.
This complex of rooms closely connected in plan and structure with the public sector was partly built on the terrace above the basis villae substructure overlooking the scenic valley below and the ancient Via Latina, and perhaps above a private garden. The residential rooms to the east of the villa had bedrooms (‘’cubicula’’), latrines and small thermal baths for private use. This sector was enlarged and modified from the era of Commodus to the 3rd century, incorporating the original parts from the Quintilii era. The corridor connecting the basis villae with the residential sector had walls and floors covered with precious marble inlays.[21]
The great baths
Intended for guests, they incorporated the first baths of the Quintili era built from tuff walls, their final enlargement being under Septimius Severus and Caracalla (late 2nd to early 3rd century) using brick for walls.[22]
The large frigidarium hall with two symmetrical cold pools still retains the extraordinary precious marble opus sectile flooring (in Thassos marble, cipollino, giallo antico) found in excavations of 1998-2000, and two preserved marble columns retrieved from the Baths of Diocletian after being removed by Nibby in 1828-9 for Prince Torlonia. The room had been preserved beneath 1.6 m of earth and the collapsed massive vaulted ceiling. The room was decorated with sculptures inspired by the Dionysian theme.[23] To the south of the hall a vestibule is decorated with a polychrome checkerboard mosaic.
The large caldarium has an unusual square structure, enormous windows and a pool 1.2 m deep. The ceiling was vaulted and covered with mosaics of blue, light blue and aquamarine glass paste tiles, found in large numbers. Between the frigidarium and the caldarium lies the tepidarium which includes changing rooms, massage rooms and hot and cold basins for a sauna.[24]
Frigidarium
Frigidarium hall
Plunge pool
Calidarium
Calidarium pool
Calidarium hypocaust with Opus sectile floor
The exedra/theatre
This large semicircular space or exedra was originally bordered by a portico decorated with Cipollino marble columns with corinthian capitals and white attic marble bases, some of which are still in their original positions. In the centre was an impluvium pool. It is dated to 123 due to the discovery of brick stamps of the consuls Apronianus and Paetinus and of Cecilia Quintia Sulpician.[25]
The exedra led to the circular summer triclinium (dining room) from where one had a prime view over the later stage of the theatre.
The seating, of three steps covered with marble slabs, and the stage of the theatre date to Commodus, as discovered in excavations in 2011-12. After the death of Commodus the theatre was covered by flooring and radial walls and also basins and fountains were added.[26]
The theatre
The theatre
The Xysti
Xystus in opus listatumA sauna of the xystus
These roughly 300 m-long covered porticoes lay at about 90 m from each other on each side of the vast garden to the southwest of the villa that must have been cultivated with trees and shrubs between pools and water. The one to the north was for walking, the other to the south for running.[27]
They were built at the end of the 2nd century under the emperors to allow indoor exercise in poor weather; at the end of the building the two outer walls delineated a curvilinear 'hourglass' space which allowed runners an easy turn. The southern xystus connected the residential part of the Villa with the large nymphaeum on the Via Appia and also supported the aqueduct. The porticos are unpaved but have a beaten earth floor, with Cipollino marble skirting on the walls.
Two of the three main walls of the south xystus, parallel to each other, are still visible built with opus listatum (rows of bricks alternating with rows of tuff blocks). The central wall, still partially covered with cipollino marble slabs, together with the northernmost wall whose foundations alone are preserved, closely follow the earlier niched structure that supported the aqueduct feeding the Large Nymphaeum starting from the Large Cistern. Excavations in 2017-18 in the space between the niche wall and the southernmost part of the portico, revealed about 19 small heated rooms at regular intervals of about 11 m, for saunas and rooms for massages linked to sports activities.[28]
Circus
The circus for chariot races was about 500 m long and had a north-south orientation, the majority lying today under private land. It was built by Commodus but demolished and razed to the foundations following his condemnation to damnatio memoriae (erasure of memory) after his death. The only element that survived the destruction was the western tower and the starting gates for horses (carceres) brought to light in excavations of 2017-18. The curvilinear walls of the end of the circus with the central Porta Pompe and the eastern tower were overbuilt with the later winery-triclinium. A bath complex (small baths) visible towards the eastern edge of the plateau was almost certainly connected to the imperial dais.[29]
↑ Hamilton to Charles Townley, quoted in Cornelius Vermeule, 'Graeco-Roman Statues: Purpose and Setting - II: Literary and Archaeological Evidence for the Display and Grouping of Graeco-Roman Sculpture", Burlington Magazine110 No. 788 (November 1968:607-613) p. 612.
↑ The "Adonis" and "Bacchante" appear in a list of "Ancient marbles found by Mr Gavin Hamilton in various Ruins near Rome since 1769", annexed to a volume of transcripts of the Hamilton-Townley correspondence, published by G. J. Hamilton and A. H. Smith, "Gavin Hamilton's Letters to Charles Townley" The Journal of Hellenic Studies21 (1901:306-321); the Townley "Bacchante" at the British Museum is "merely a draped female with a bunch of grapes in the left hand and a panther beside the lower limbs" according to Vermeule; it had been called a "Libera" and "found by Mr. Gavin Hamilton, at Roma Vecchia", in Charles Knight, Guide cards to the antiquities in the British Museum 1840.
↑ Vermeule 1968:612, noting A.H. Smith, in Journal of Hellenic Studies21' (1901:316). Smith had identified the site as the Domus Quintiliana in The Lansdowne Marbles 1889. (Vermeule, ibid., note 14).
↑ Giuliana Galli, La Villa dei Quintili a c. di R.Paris, Electa 2000 p.29
↑ R Frontoni G Galli, Villa dei Quintili. Pavimenti musivi e in opus sectile dell'area central, Atti del XVI Colloquio dell'Associazione Italiana per lo Studio e la Conservazione del Mosaico 2010
↑ Giuliana Galli, La Villa dei Quintili a c. di R.Paris, Electa 2000 p.29
↑ PIETRO SERRA, Thesis: La Villa dei Quintili: scavi e scoperte lungo il V miglio della Via Appia, Dielle Editore Roma, 2015
↑ R Frontoni G Galli, Villa dei Quintili. Pavimenti musivi e in opus sectile dell'area central, Atti del XVI Colloquio dell'Associazione Italiana per lo Studio e la Conservazione del Mosaico 2010 p 415
↑ PIETRO SERRA, Thesis: La Villa dei Quintili: scavi e scoperte lungo il V miglio della Via Appia, Dielle Editore Roma, 2015 p 20
↑ ADAM G.P., L’arte di costruire presso i romani, Milano 1988
↑ PIETRO SERRA, Thesis: La Villa dei Quintili: scavi e scoperte lungo il V miglio della Via Appia, Dielle Editore Roma, 2015 p 23
↑ Giuliana Galli, La Villa dei Quintili a c. di R.Paris, Electa 2000 p.42
↑ R. Frontoni, G. Galli, R. Paris, Villa dei Quintili. Guida pieghevole, Forma Urbis Anno XVII • n. 2 Itinerari Nascosti Di Roma Antica Febbraio 2012 p 24
↑ R Frontoni G Galli: Villa dei Quintili (RM). Pavimenti musivi e in opus sectile dell'area centrale, in AISCOM XVI, 2011, p. 414
↑ Riccardo Frontoni Via Appia Antica: Nuove Scoperte Alla Villa Dei Quintili, AISCOM (Atti Del XXV Colloquio Dell’associazione Italiana Per Lo Studio E La Conservazione Del Mosaico, 2019 p 235
↑ Riccardo Frontoni Via Appia Antica: Nuove Scoperte Alla Villa Dei Quintili, AISCOM (Atti Del XXV Colloquio Dell’associazione Italiana Per Lo Studio E La Conservazione Del Mosaico) 2019 p 236
↑ Riccardo Frontoni Via Appia Antica: Nuove Scoperte Alla Villa Dei Quintili, AISCOM (Atti Del XXV Colloquio Dell’associazione Italiana Per Lo Studio E La Conservazione Del Mosaico) 2019 p 236
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