Tivoli's Villa Adriana Maritime Theater reopens after three years

After a three-year wait, a period during which it underwent a thorough restoration campaign, the Maritime Theater of Hadrian’s Villa in Tivoli finally reopens to the public, which will be open again starting Saturday, July 29. The presentation of the intervention will instead be held on Friday, July 28, 2017, at 6:30 p.m., in the presence of Undersecretary for Cultural Heritage Ilaria Borletti Buitoni. The inauguration will also mark the beginning of a two-year period dedicated to Emperor Hadrian, whose anniversary number 1900 of his accession to the imperial throne (117 AD) falls.

“The Maritime Theater,” says Andrea Bruciati, Director of Hadrian’s Villa and Villa d’Este, “was a space dedicated to thought, meditation, and reflection, which now re-emerges from a restoration that has affected a fundamental area of the Hadrianic residential complex over the last three years. A symbolic environment of the imagination, partially inaccessible since 2010, which now reintegrates the total reading of the monument, casting a new light on the near future of the Villa. This reopening thus marks a first extroverted act of an inclusive process that will see various areas unfold once again to the public in this two-year period dedicated to the Emperor. It is a symbolic and concrete action that dialectically grafts itself onto a precious and ancient frequency, which indicates in an actualized way the new course of the Villa Adriana and Villa d’Este Institute.”

The restoration intervened on many issues that had remained open, as Alfonsina Russo, superintendent for Rome, Viterbo and Southern Etruria, explains: “The challenging restoration work, which took place in 2014-2016, solved the security problems and returned full legibility to the most famous monumental complex of the Villa, which for its many mentions in modern architecture has contributed decisively to the inscription of the Tiburtine residence in the UNESCO World Heritage Site. After a long period of closure, the striking annular portico of the Maritime Theater, which provided access to the two nearby Imperial Palaces, will once again be passable, and it will be possible to admire the tiny private domus welcomed on the central island surrounded by the canal. The integration of the curtain walls, conducted - as is the tradition in Villa restorations - with rigorous philological method, respectful of the poetry of the ruins, and the cleaning of the stone surfaces emphasize the beauty of the spatial solutions that fit, favoring wraparound spaces and vaulted roofs, into the most innovative strand of Hadrianic design. Similarly, in the adjoining Hall of the Philosophers, additions and consolidations have restored sharpness of line to the colossal structures of what was actually the Villa’s library, an expression of the ideal of Greek culture that rose to become the true unifying element of Hadrian’s Empire.”

Tivoli's Villa Adriana Maritime Theater reopens after three years

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