Villa of Domitian

The legendary nearby capital of the Latin League, Alba Longa, was completely destroyed in the 6th c. BC becoming part of the Ager Albanus, and Latium vetus was annexed to Rome.

[12] Domitian settled here on a permanent basis,[citation needed] and decided to build a new main complex to the villa in the most panoramic position towards both the sea and the lake, and featuring lavish new structures such as a garden-stadium and theatre.

[citation needed] The African Emperor Septimius Severus built the grandiose legionary fortress of Castra Albana in 197 AD on the edge of the imperial properties for the Legio II Parthica.

The Parthian legionaries and their families established around the camp began to plunder the villa structures in order to use the material for new construction, thus giving rise to the village that would later become Albano Laziale.

[citation needed] A second town developed on the northern edge of the imperial properties: in the Middle Ages it was called Cuccurutus and gave rise to the village Castel Gandolfo.

[citation needed] The then feudal lords, the Savelli, gave permission to dismantle the facilities of the villa in 1321: the destruction lasted 36 days.

The most striking views of the ruins overgrown by vegetation, such as the cryptoporticus and nymphaeum, were described by scholars and diarists from the 15th c. onwards and reproduced in engravings and paintings.

In 1919 he made the first archaeological survey aboard the airship "Roma ", accompanied by the director of the British School of Rome, Thomas Ashby.

The Pontifical Villas were subjected to a radical reorganisation at the behest of Pope Pius XI and even the archaeological inventories, such as the cryptoporticus and the road of the nymphaea, were cleaned and incorporated.

Quite possibly it extended north to at least Bovillae (XIII milestone of Appia Antica), in the south up to Aricia (XVI mile),[citation needed] or over 6 km2 according to Giuseppe Lugli.

[17] The palace proper stood on the second terrace, on the site of the present church of St. Francis of Assisi and the adjoining building of Propaganda Fide.

There are also buildings over the estate: the nymphaea and the docks on the lake shore, the hillside terrace, cisterns and the three aqueducts from Palazzolo, the access road network, the nymphaeum of the Rotunda in the centre of Albano converted into a Catholic church.

To the east, however, probably the imperial possessions included the entire Lake Albano with the many villas built in the Republican era on the crater (the so-called Augusto Palazzolo, one attributed to Seneca not far away, and others between Marino and Castel Gandolfo).

[18] This 1 km-long avenue along the terrace extending northwest from the palace and leading to the theatre is one of the most characteristic fearures of the imperial villa.

Near the midpoint of this wall is a 100 m-long tunnel, dug through the peperino rock of the ridge of the crater in a gigantic task to allow the emperor to more easily reach the lake-side of the estate where there was another terrace.

The theatre, although accommodating only 500 spectators, is one of the most significant buildings of the villa, with its exceptional marble decoration (reconstructed in the museum of Villa Barberini) and extraordinary stucco relief panels in the hall of the auditorium, a frieze consisting of thirteen panels depicting themes related to theatre and one of the most important testimonies to the Flavians, like the paintings of Pompeii and Herculaneum.

The theatre steps were crowned with a particularly elaborate and sumptuous columned portico, together with a series of small nymphaea lavishly decorated in marble opus sectile floors.

It is likely that the north-western part was damaged at end of the 2nd or in the early 3rd century by one of the earthquakes in this area and collapsed later, as it had large windows weakening the structure unlike the surviving section.

The lakeside terrace is accessed through the tunnel dug into the lava rock from the Avenue of the Nymphaea to save the emperor from climbing the hill to see the lake below.

Originally a quarry it was made into a grotto with alcoves around a pool, from which a statue of Scylla in bigio marble emerged, and the floor was completely covered with mosaics of which a few fragments remain.

Domitian recreated here features of the maritime otium villas on the Tyrrenian coast of southern Latium at Sperlonga and at Baiae.

The first part of the shore at the Doric nymphaeum is dated to the late Republican era, and one or two villas can be recognised which were subsequently incorporated into the Domitian complex.

[32] In the Severan era (3rd century AD) it was incorporated into the perimeter wall of the Castra Albana and adapted for bathing by legionaries: to this phase belong the floor mosaics with marine animals, in a painting of scenes in a gymnasium and in ceramic water pipes found at different times below modern buildings that surround the monument.

The tunnelling work was so demanding that the builders wrongly made a reverse slope for about 100 m (330 ft) which they had to correct by raising the aqueduct floor with bricks.

The aqueduct had to serve the whole of the villa building and to maintain a high flow the builders had to follow a rather tortuous path through the woods of Selvotta.

The low Malafitto has more opus reticulatum and different channel dimensions that suggest a period immediately subsequent to the Flavian, presumably Trajan or Hadrian.

Its route runs almost parallel to the others to the cemetery of Albano but then heads towards the current town of Castel Gandolfo and it seems certain that it leads to the large Torlonia cistern in the dell'Ercolano area.

Finally, the aqueduct of Aqua Augusta was identified in 1872 by Giovanni Battista de Rossi due to five memorial stones found in different properties between the Fields of Hannibal at Rocca di Papa, and the slopes of Monte Cavo.

The only possible hypothesis is that it served the Roman villa identified on the shores of Lake Albano in Palazzolo, attributed to Augustus by the 19th c. archaeologists.

Another, measuring 7.6 x 2.5 m and about 7 m high, was discovered on the shore of Lake Albano at the end of the downhill section of the current state road 140 and probably served an ancient villa incorporated into the imperial properties.