Italian Gardens: Villa d'Este & Villa Adriana

24 February

Yes, yes I'm like a month behind. But cut me some slack, I'm living in a foreign country and I have little desire to sit on my laptop and sift through my pictures. I will however try to get at least one or two more posts up tonight.

Anyways, field trips- great stuff. For Italian Gardens class we were whisked away by bus to the outskirts of Rome to check out one garden (Villa d'Este) and one set of ruins (Villa Adriana).

 Long story short, back in the Renaissance, rich nobles and clergymen were looking for new and exciting ways to outclass each other, so after reading ancient texts, etc... they decided gardens would be a fancy way to show off. Villa d'Este is one of the fancier ones.

Shown above are 3 of the largest water features of the garden, in order:  the Fountain of Neptune, the Dragon Fountain, and the Oval Fountain. I could go into depth about how each fountain symbolizes some aspect of Greek/Roman mythology but the overall message was just to show how awesome and godlike the patron/owner of the garden was. They sure do like their fountains though.

After lunch, we hopped on the bus and drove to Villa Adriana, which isn't actually a villa but I doubt anyone is interested in semantics. Essentially, the town was built by the Emperor Hadrian in ...  long ago as a sort of summer palace, where he could enjoy himself. Obviously, the place is in ruins but the whole complex is so large that we were warned repeatedly about not getting lost. 

The model of the area doesn't quite do it justice. Walking through the tattered bricks walls though, you have to force yourself to imagine that everything was once covered in shining white marble. I'd give my left hand to see it it's in former glory. Still... 

The remains do have a charm of their own. This large pool sat directly in front of Hadrian's personal grotto so he could enjoy the view and the coolness of the water. 

You can see where they "restored" the pillars by using pieces of cement smaller than the actual pillar. I think it looks ugly but clearly the Italians and I differ on opinions of preservation and restoration.

I nicknamed this place "The Pillar Graveyard". 

And that's that. I'll keep working on getting back up to date.