Central Vestibule and its eastern extension, looking west

The army of artists and workmen who early in the second century fashioned the landscape and the scores of buildings of Hadrian’s Villa began a chain of artistic events whose measure has yet to be taken. Set among extended terraces on a vast, uneven tract below Tivoli and adorned throughout with fountains, pools, and sculpture, the Villa spread across an area twice that of Pompeii. Because of its novel forms and planning and brilliant visual and allusive invention, it is a major achievement of …