FRIDAY, MAY 14th,
Today, the program took us on a day trip to the two villas listed in the title. I’ll talk about the Hadrian’s Villa first:
This place was HUGE. The villa was made by the Roman Emperor Hadrian, which was originally designed as a place for him to get away from Rome for a break from governmental affairs. The outcome was much greater than he anticipated, however, and it eventually turned into an architectural “testing ground”, if you will. Design and construction of the villa started in the year 117 A.D., and was not fully completed when Hadrian died in 134 A.D. The villa covers about 300 acres and became a secondary government location during the later years of Hadrian’s life. Hadrian himself was an amateur architect, and helped design a lot of the pieces of the entire villa. Unfortunately, today the villa is in ruins, which is severely disappointing because it would have been on the scale of Versailles had it still been intact. However, the ruins give us a very good impression of what the villa was like in its prime.
Villa d’Este:
Villa d’Este, though it was smaller than Hadrian’s, was definitely not inferior. This villa is much newer than Hadrian’s, and therefore is still intact. We were only able to tour this villa for about 45 minutes, so I don’t have as much knowledge on the history of it as Hadrian’s, but I’ll share with you what I do know about it: The villa was built by a Cardinal that only barely missed the Papacy (He actually came in second place in the vote). In consolation, the Cardinal that did win the Papacy appointed him as the Cardinal of Tivoli. This essentially rendered him the governor of the town, so he built himself a villa on the nicest piece of real estate in the town (Does this sound anything like our politicians today?). The villa is built against the hillside, and while the house itself is very impressive, the best part of the villa is the garden and fountains in front of the main entrance. It was referred to as the first Italian water park.
Pat and I copied these two random girls that did this picture right before us. I think they were a little offended.
Well, I’m exhausted after walking all day, so I’m going to get to bed — CINQUE TERRE TOMORROW!
Location: Tivoli, Italy