Under the Sign of Capricorn. Painting in the Age of Hadrian

The exhibition Under the Sign of Capricorn. Painting in the Age of Hadrian, at Villa Adriana - organized by the Istituto Autonomo Villa Adriana e Villa d’Este – VILLÆ and curated by the Director Andrea Bruciati with Veronica Fondi, restorer and curator of the Institute - presents the state of the art of mural painting from the Hadrian period (117-138 AD) inside the famous imperial residence.

Inside the Mouseia rooms, some of the over five hundred pictorial fragments are exhibited, whose discovery in the area of ​​the so-called “Palestra” has allowed us to add an important piece of knowledge on the still little-researched theme of painting in Villa Adriana. To enrich the exhibition itinerary, the frescoes from the area of ​​the so-called “Macchiozzo” are presented for the first time, after a delicate restoration. On the occasion of the exhibition, it is also possible to visit the rooms usually closed to the public of the western substructures of the Canopus, where the vaults are decorated with polychrome frescoes with plant compositions and zoomorphic motifs, from which the exhibition takes its title. In the same rooms, some mural paintings detached in the Seventies from the decoration of the barrel vault of the Serapeum are also set up.

Thanks to the sources we know that the villa was decorated with a lively polychromy that contributed, together with stuccos, mosaics and opus sectile, to the beauty of the place. During the 2nd century AD, Roman painting gradually became simpler, deconstructing the previous decorative systems, while linear, slender and light arrangements began to be preferred, where the walls were punctuated by simple colored frames that frame sparse elements or small scenes quickly sketched, thus overcoming the decorative heaviness of the Flavian age (from 69 to 96 AD).

In this cultural context, the painting of the Hadrianic period can be placed in a transitional position, where elements borrowed from the rich grotesque decorations, large monochrome backgrounds, often in yellow and red, anthropomorphic figures and elements taken from the plant world coexist, together with already more airy and light arrangements, especially in the semi-subterranean spaces and in the cryptoporticos, where the white backgrounds prevail on which threadlike and elegant tripartites emerge, executed using coloured bands or thin pillars.

Contemporary evidence can be found, in the Roman context, in some domus on the Aventine Hill, in the so-called domus of Vigna Guidi under the Baths of Caracalla and in the Piranesi Rooms near the Palace of the Villa of Maxentius, and finally in the Ostia context, such as in the House of the Muses and in the House of the Hierodules, even if the Tiburtine site often presents a peculiar panorama compared to the paintings of the same period.

Finally, we recall that the exhibition was conceived in close and continuous dialogue with the Villa and its painted architecture, narrated through video images, but also through guided tours inside the monuments that still bear traces of the original pictorial decoration, both within the current visitor route (such as the Small Baths, the Hospitalia, the Imperial Triclinium), and instead part of areas usually closed to the public (such as the Cryptoporticus of the Peschiera and the so-called Garden-Stadium).

Photo credits: by Veronica Fondi, panel with fragments of painted plaster, Hadrian's Villa, Hadrian-age deposits