Hadrian's Villa

Hadrian became Roman emperor in 117 and began building a villa near Tibur, now Tivoli, about 20 km from Rome, at the end of 118 or the start of 119. Most of the earliest brick stamps are dated 117, which suggests the bricks were made in advance. The emperor spent much of his reign touring the empire; his first documented stay at the villa was in 125, and from about 128 he used it as his official residence.

The complex covers at least a square kilometre, more than the city of Pompeii. Its 30 or so buildings were designed as an ideal city drawing on the architecture of Greece, Rome and Egypt. The Maritime Theatre, a small villa on an island in a circular pool, was among the first buildings, begun in 118, and the long pool called the Canopus is named after the Egyptian city of Canopus and the branch of the Nile that led to it.

After Hadrian's death in 138 his successors used the villa from time to time, but its materials and furnishings were gradually carried off. It was rediscovered in 1461, and the writings of Pope Pius II drew architects' attention to it. In the 16th century Cardinal Ippolito II d'Este removed much of the remaining marble and statuary to decorate his own Villa d'Este nearby. The villa was inscribed as a World Heritage site in 1999.