Chapter 16

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Roman Sculpture and Aesthetics

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Ancient authors recurrently engaged with notions of natural and artistic beauty, giving detailed accounts about what they considered worth looking at when assessing the beauty or the ugliness of an art work. However, theories discussing the aesthetics of Roman sculpture were only developed from the eighteenth century, when Johann Joachim Winkelmann published his Geschichte der Kunst des Alterthums (1764), in the wake of the works of German philosopher Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten (1714–1762). By declaring the superiority of Greek over Roman sculpture, Winkelmann influenced enormously the way critics looked at Roman art in the following centuries. Consequently, art historians focused their attention on Roman sculpture merely as a source of information about Greek statuary, developing a field of studies (Kopienkritik) that aimed at reconstructing as accurately as possible lost Greek masterpieces from the comparative analysis of ancient sources with surviving Roman copies. The use of casts and photography in the study of Classical sculpture also meant that sculptures, decontextualized and displayed in new settings such as museums and private galleries, soon became the object of purely formal analysis, with no attention given to the social and historical background that led to their production and display. Undoubtedly, comparative studies had the merit of encouraging the development of a history of ancient art, which in its fundamentals is still valid today. In pursuing a purely formal approach to the study of ancient art and establishing the indisputable primacy of Greek over Roman statuary, they conversely hindered the study of Roman sculpture as an autonomous field of research. Such an approach to the study of Roman sculpture was rejected in the second half of the twentieth century, when sociohistorical approaches to ancient art were gradually introduced into the discipline as a way to understand stylistic patterns as the expression of ancient culture and society (Bianchi Bandinelli 1970), and the semantics of Roman visual language as the expression of complex social and historical issues (P. Zanker 1988). A field of research has developed that focused on problems of identity and status (D’Ambra 1998), gender and sexuality (Kampen 1996; Kolosky Ostrow and Lyons 1997), extending our knowledge of the diverse and multifaceted world of local production and consumption of statues, as thoroughly illustrated by the ever‐expanding Corpus Signorum Imperii Romani. Increasing importance has been given to the way Romans looked at their art works, either in the form A Companion to Ancient Aesthetics, First Edition. Edited by Pierre Destrée and Penelope Murray. © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2015 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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of pictorial elements on walls and other media (Stewart 2003), or as part of stunning architectural settings in private and public contexts (Manderscheid 1981; Marvin 1983; Neudecker 1988; Bartman 1991). Attention is also being paid to understanding the perspective of the ancient viewers, which could vary according to their status, gender, and cultural background (Clarke 2003; Elsner 2007). Looking at the aesthetics of Roman sculpture means considering a vast and changing world with distinctive characteristics, where contacts and exchanges contributed to create a recognizable figurative language, but not necessarily to the generation of common values and ideas. Roman sculptural production developed over a period of more than 10 centuries and across a vast area, populated by people with distinctive cultural, social, and economic backgrounds. Taste and values changed accordingly, differing from region to region, from time to time. Consequently, Roman artistic production encompassed wide and diverse expression, from the artistic creations of the city of Rome, to the art of the provincials, with its distinctive social, historical, and cultural aspects. Statues were produced by artists and workshops with different backgrounds, and style varied enormously according to the final destination and purpose of the sculptures. Nonetheless, there are at least three key moments in the history of Roman art that have to be taken into account when looking at the development of Roman perceptions of sculpture. The first dates back to the last two centuries of the Roman Republic, when a great number of Greek art works were brought to Rome, following the conquest of Sicily and the eastern Mediterranean. Together with great Classical and Hellenistic art works, looted from cities and sanctuaries or duly provided by Hellenistic dynasts, a great number of sculptors, painters, architects, and intellectuals moved to the new capital of the Mediterranean. The culture of middle and late Hellenism brought by the newcomers offered to the Roman elite a wide array of intellectual options, from the temperate stoicism of Panaetius to suit the austere views of the followers of the traditional mos maiorum, to the Epicureanism that responded to the implicit hedonism of the increasing luxuria, nuancing Roman reception of visual art with new intellectual and moral issues. A second landmark in the development of the Roman perception and use of sculpture is to be seen in the Augustan era, when visual art assumed an indisputable role in imperial propaganda (P. Zanker 1988). The new ruler of Rome restricted any form of autonomy of Roman elites: official art set for the first time the visual language for public representation according to a programmatic agenda, clearing the public space of independent forms of visual display. Models elaborated within the context of the imperial entourage were transposed across the empire, through imperial patronage and local euergetism. The importance of the subject as well as the great visibility of the monuments built in honor of the imperial family, which were displayed in the most important spaces of the city, gave imperial imagery a greater role in shaping local taste and perception of sculptures. As a result, although the visual imagery of the empire developed with local variations according to autonomous and distinctive characters, local tastes and aesthetics were constantly shaped by what had been designed in the center of the empire. A further phenomenon gradually shaped the way Romans looked at sculptures. During the first two centuries of the imperial age the availability of marble from every part of the empire, the widespread diffusion of artistic workshops, the flourishing of imperial patronage, and a general climate of peace and economic prosperity supported an unprecedented development of sculptural production across the entire Mediterranean. An increasing emphasis was placed on sculptures as parts of complex architectural settings and public monuments such as theaters, nymphaea, and baths. This attitude gradually permeated the more private spaces of imperial palaces and villas and extended to the elite residences of Italy and the provinces. Increasingly set within niches, sculptures (and their viewing) thus became an integral part of the architectural planning of a building.

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This chapter suggests that ideas about beauty influenced not just the way sculptures were judged and appraised by the Romans but also how sculptures were arranged and displayed within their architectural setting. After drafting a general overview of the aesthetics of Roman sculpture during the early centuries of the empire, the chapter will focus on how aesthetic values shaped the setting and the display of sculptures in Roman imperial residences, exploring in particular the principles that influenced the planning of niches and statue bases at Hadrian’s villa, near Rome. Roman statues were chosen according to their antiquity, their pedigree, or their capacity to evoke historical associations. Subject, size, and shape of a statue were also taken into account when making decisions about its location and disposition. The term decor, or appropriateness, which is usually applied to poetry and rhetoric (Cicero, On Duties 1.27.97– 98 and 1.35.128) as well as to architecture (Vitruvius, On Architecture 1.2.1–5), also shaped the way Roman aristocrats chose what sculptures to display and where (Bartman 1991, 74–75). Sculptures were chosen according to their suitability for a building, its role and its final destination: statues of athletes were considered to be appropriate for baths, palaestrai, and gymnasia while philosophers could properly be displayed in the library of a villa (Cicero, Letters to Atticus 1.5–10). Unsuitable choices were censured and criticized, as was the case of the Alabandines, who proved to lack any sense of appropriateness by putting statues of orators in their city’s gymnasium and decorating the forum with athletes (Vit. On Architecture 7.5.6). There is no reason to reject the idea that statues could be appreciated on aesthetic grounds. A Roman patron may have favored a statue for its formal, technical, and expressive qualities much as happens today. The term decor could in fact refer to the aesthetic qualities of a statue, such as its majesty, gesture, and costume. The style of an artistic representation was chosen and was consequently assessed as appropriate or not according to the subject represented. This was not just a matter of private choice, since public bodies such as the Roman Senate or the municipal assemblies gave detailed accounts on how an honorary statue should appear: when the municipal body of Pisa honored Gaius Caesar with a posthumous arch in ad 4, they carefully established the way all statues were to look and how they were to be dressed according to their status and honors (CIL XI 1421 = ILS 140). Taste and aesthetic values changed according to status, gender, region, and chronology. A short letter from Pliny the Younger to his friend Animus Severus illustrates which features an educated member of the order of equites of the first century ad took into account when assessing the beauty of a sculpture: size, posture and proportions, the accuracy in the details and its likeness to the original, materials deployed, age, and pedigree (Letters 3.6.1–4). Size and the shape of a statue were relevant to its final display and were carefully related to its importance and location. In public places, the dimensions and position of honorary statues were established by local authorities according to the relevance attributed to the person being honored (Chenault 2012). Nonetheless, the size and shape of a statue also responded to aesthetic principles as statues had to harmonize with their architectural setting. Dimensions also defined the quality of an art work, whether it was colossal (Pliny the Elder, Natural History 34.39–47), or infinitely small (36.43), particularly when it was connected to the quality of its execution (Pliny the Younger, Letters 1.20) and the level of accuracy achieved by the artist, sometimes at the risk of his own life (Pliny the Elder, Nat. Hist. 36.40). The quality of the details in the making of a sculpture was so praised (Pliny the Elder, Nat. Hist. 36.43) that Pheidias was celebrated not just for creating monumental statues, such as the Athena Parthenos and the Olympian Zeus, but also for the accuracy of the details on Athena’s shield and sandals (Pliny the Elder, Nat. Hist. 36.18–19). In his letter, Pliny gives an overview of the newly purchased sculpture: the nakedness of the statue allows the author to observe the body without concealment. He can now look at the

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figure in its entirety and appreciate what makes the statue beautiful: its shape and proportions between the parts, which is to say, its rythmos and symmetria. Measure and proportion had long since been identified with beauty and virtue (Plato, Philebus 64.e) and symmetria was often recalled as an artistic quality that made a figure beautiful (Xenophon, Memoirs of Socrates 3.10.3). The Romans did not have a Latin word for symmetria and often preferred to use the Greek term (Pliny the Elder, Nat. Hist. 34.65) or a number of other expressions like commensus, commodulatio, convenientia, constantia, commoditas, commodus, responsus, consensus. The term symmetria was used to express the existing geometric relationship between the single parts and the whole of a building (Vitruvius, De Architectura 1.2.4 and 3.1.1) but it was also a determining feature of the quality of a sculpture (Pliny the Elder, Nat. Hist. 34.58). The importance of symmetria as a concept persisted throughout the whole imperial age (Philostratus, Images, Preface). In the third century ad Plotinus rejected this traditional view of beauty as symmetry of parts in favor of a new definition of beauty as an idea created and emanated by a Principle (Plotinus, Enneads 1.6.1). In explaining his theory the philosopher recalled a shared view among his contemporaries that helps our understanding of contemporary Roman aesthetics, which embraced ideas about beauty as a unity composed of individual parts that contribute to making the whole beautiful. According to this view, Plotinus objects, the individual parts will not have beauty in themselves but will contribute to making the whole beautiful. But if the whole is beautiful, the individual parts must be beautiful too, as the beautiful whole cannot be made out of ugly parts. This notion, far from being just an abstract reference to the correspondence between parts of a statue, also echoes the richness and inventiveness of contemporary sculpture. In light of Plotinus’s accounts about the views of his contemporaries, one could thus appreciate funerary statues that combined a mature portrait of the deceased with the ideal and youthful body of a divine entity. This phenomenon, particularly popular among the Roman nobility and the wealthy imperial freedmen during the first two centuries of the empire, has been widely investigated (Wrede 1981; D’Ambra 2000), but its aesthetic implications have not been fully considered. A statue of a Roman matron portrayed as Omphale from the Vatican Museums shows a middle‐aged woman, with an elaborate hairstyle that allows dating to the Severan age. The body is protected by a leontè that covers the lady’s head, leaving the figure almost completely naked. The striking contrast between the ideal type of the body, derived from prototypes of late Classical and Hellenistic statues of Venus, and the realism of the portrait has been attributed to the well‐known Roman practice of celebrating the moral qualities of the deceased with reference to a divine figure (P. Zanker 1999). Using a metaphor already conceived by Larissa Bonfante, Eve D’Ambra has interpreted the nudity of the statues as a “costume,” used to give the resemblance of a divinity to the portrait of the deceased (Bonfante 1989; D’Ambra 1996). This approach has the merit of putting the accent on the unified character of statues with portraits on nude idealized bodies and on the complementarity of their parts, a concept recently recalled by Stewart in his work on heads and bodies in Roman statuary (2003, 56–59). From an aesthetic point of view, the juxtaposition of styles that look so incoherent to modern eyes can thus be appreciated in the light of Plotinus’ accounts on contemporary aesthetics. If beauty is a unity composed of beautiful individual parts, then beautiful, but stylistically different, portions of the body could be prized as part of a complete beautiful figure. Along with appearance, color also played an important role in Roman perceptions of sculpture. The ancient sources provide a wealth of information about the practice of lapidem pingere. In particular they refer to color as the means of giving life to a sculpture (Lucian, Imagines 6.27) and also to the practice of further embellishing colored marbles by painting on additional colors and patterns (Pliny the Elder, Nat. Hist. 35.3). Colors

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were added to metal, ivory, terracotta, and marble statues, and the latter were often waxed in order to give them a more natural result and a lifelike appearance. Influenced by Winckelmann’s notions that saw in white statues an ideal of classicism and by the practice of polishing statues carried out by neoclassical artists, modern scholars have often underestimated the role of polychromy in ancient statuary. In the last 30 years much has been done in order to revise this approach and polychromy is now explored as an essential part of sculpture making and of Roman taste (Bradley 2009b). Polychromy strengthened the legibility of figures and the visibility of some details, providing the viewer with useful code colors that enhanced his or her understanding of the visual message expressed by the statue (Bradley 2009a). But coloring was the result of aesthetic choices too and it is frequently evoked as a defining feature for beauty (Cicero, Tusculan disputations 4.31), especially in connection with a statue’s likeness to a living figure. Indeed, the use of applied colors as well as of colored marble, so recurrent in imperial statuary, could enhance a statue’s resemblance to a real figure, as is the case for the statue of Marsyas of the Capitoline Museums, where the pavonazzetto marble was possibly chosen for its evocative likeness to the flesh of the lacerated body of the silenus as if he had just been skinned, in a display of crude realism. Polychromy also added details to a statue, thus making it more truthful and close to its original model. Fidelity of the sculpted image to the object portrayed (aletheia, verisimilitudo) was another recurring theme when assessing the beauty of an art work. Expressing his appreciation for the quality of the sculpture he had bought, Pliny the Younger relied on an accurate description of its physical characteristics, which made the sculpture similar to a living figure (Pliny the Younger, Letters 3.6.2). The value of an artist was judged by his capacity to reproduce nature and by the adherence of his works to the truth: so the plastes Possis was celebrated by Pliny the Elder as the maker of apples and grapes which the very birds could not distinguish from nature (Pliny the Elder, Nat. Hist. 35.2.155). Similarly Kephisodotos was remembered for his ability to bewilder viewers, who were left wondering whether they were looking at a marble figure or at a real body (Pliny the Elder, Nat. Hist. 36.24). The accuracy of artists in gaining a great level of likeness even when risking their own lives was thus recalled as an example of supreme artistic quality (ibid. 36.40).

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The Aesthetics of Sculptural Display

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The location and context of a statue also held an important place in its viewing and appraisal. Modes of viewing that involved the viewer visually and spatially already characterized Hellenistic art (G. Zanker 2004) and gradually entered the Roman sphere, both in public and private contexts (Drerup 1959; Clarke 1991). While celebrating the quality of Praxiteles’s Venus of Cnidus, Pliny the Elder explicitly recalled its location at the center of a small shrine, in order to make the statue visible from all around, because the excellence of the art work made it attractive from any point of view (Pliny the Elder, Nat. Hist. 36.21). The position of a statue could also reflect negatively on its appreciation: the lack of a pediment or a base could be a sign of disfavor (ibid. 36.39) and the location of a statue on a high position, as the pediment of the Pantheon of Agrippa, was recalled as an obstacle for the true enjoyment of its artistic qualities (ibid. 36.38). The underlying principles of sculptural display in the Roman world have been widely discussed, in public (Manderscheid 1981; Marvin 1983; Fejfer 2008) as well as in domestic contexts (Dwyer 1982; Bartman 1991; D’Ambra 1993) and imperial residences (Raeder 1983; Neudecker 1988). Famous art works were usually displayed in remarkable places as a

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sign of their importance (Pliny the Elder, Nat. Hist. 34.84). When Tiberius removed the statue of the Apoxyomenos of Lysippus from its original setting in front of the Baths of Agrippa and transported it to his private palace, a public outcry forced him to bring it back where it originally belonged (ibid. 34.62). In public spaces the location of honorary sculptures was carefully chosen by the dedicant and approved by the public council of the city. The placing of sculptures in urban spaces was chosen according to the subject as well as the role and importance of the people portrayed (Fejfer 2008; Chenault 2012). Statues were usually located in proximity to other sculptures or monuments that could enhance their visibility and create meaningful relations, but there is no reason to exclude the possibility that aesthetic choices were also taken into account. For example, statues were accurately displayed in regular rows along porticoes and colonnades and their dimensions were carefully established in order to harmonize with the surrounding space. From the imperial age the diffusion of multistoreyed settings for sculptures such as the scaenae frontes of theaters and monumental nymphaea progressively integrated freestanding sculpture into architectural settings. In so doing they enhanced the visibility of statues, whose display was planned not just according to their subject but also in relation to aesthetic values, such as symmetry and their dimensional relations with the architectural context. Aesthetic values also determined the way sculptures were displayed in private contexts: a peaceful villa was considered a more suitable setting than a busy town to fully appraise the aesthetic qualities of a statue (Pliny the Elder, Nat. Hist. 36.27). Patrons expressed their tastes in the deployment of certain arrangements of statues. Repetitions of the same statuary type, symmetrical dispositions, and mirror reversals could provoke discussions, comparisons, and appreciation of technical as well as of aesthetic differences between sculptures (Bartman 1988; Gazda 1995). One can reasonably suggest that imperial residences reflected these notions and, indeed, imperial villas and palaces provide plentiful examples of this. At Hadrian’s villa in Tivoli, for example, ancient visitors could appreciate two versions of the Pasquino group, the Scylla, the Niobids, the Red Faun, Myron’s Discobolus, and the Furietti centaurs, as well as three Sandalenbinder statues (Raeder 1983, 336 n.226). Identical sculptures could be displayed within the same building and mirror reversals be arranged in order to promote comparisons between two or more art works. This is likely to be the case for two almost identical copies of the Athena Vescovali found in the Building with Three Exedras. The statues have similar dimensions and may have been produced in the same workshop, as they share certain technical details, such as the making of separate heads and right arms (Slavazzi 2002, 65–66). On the other hand, the two sculptures differ in some particulars, as the presence of the aegis, and it is likely that the small differences in their appearance could inspire erudite discussions among the emperor’s guests. It is important to remember, however, that being movable objects, especially when of small dimensions, sculptures could be easily relocated from one place to another (Pliny the Elder, Nat. Hist. 34.62). This makes it difficult to reconstruct the ideas that inspired their original disposition even in well‐known contexts, such as the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum. Repetitions, mirror reversals, and symmetries in the setting of statues that we find in the archaeological record may only reflect the final stage in a chain of changes that is often impossible to track. Indeed, if we are to understand the notions that underpinned the design of the sculptural display at the beginning of a building project, we can obtain far more accurate information by looking at the architectural settings designed for the sculptures such as niches and masonry plinths, rather than at the sculptures themselves. By looking at these settings we can hope to reconstruct the principles that influenced the way architects and patrons wanted their sculptures to be seen and appreciated.

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Water and Sculpture: Multiplicity and Variability in the Setting of the Sculptures in Roman Imperial Residences

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Built between ad 117 and 138, Hadrian’s villa makes an excellent case study, as its planning heavily relied on niches and masonry plinths in the design of the sculptural decoration, following a common attitude in the late first and second centuries ad. Moreover, despite the fact that it was built over a rather long timespan and great differences characterized the architectural layout of its buildings, the villa is the result of a distinctive and coherent planning, as the presence of a subterranean carriageway that connected the separate areas of the villa seems to suggest. An extraordinary number of sculptures have also been recovered from the site since the Renaissance (Raeder 1983) that have proved an indispensable resource for reconstructing the decorative programs of the villa as well as its cultural and historical meaning (Raeder 1983; Reggiani 2000; Newby 2002; Mari and Sgalambro 2007). The setting of sculptures at the villa heavily reflects contemporary attitudes toward the arrangement of statues both in private and public spaces of Rome and Italy: rows of sculptures were displayed in niches lined up within the curved walls of the villa’s numerous nymphaea and dining halls or distributed along porticoes and pools. Statues could also be juxtaposed one in front of another, paired in couples or in larger groups, with complex designs as in the Canopus, where alongside the linear display of statues in the semicircular exedra opposing niches were arranged in the long and narrow nymphaeum set in the background. Series of statues were also arranged around the walls of the villa’s rotundas, the hot rooms of its thermal complexes and at Roccabruna. Similar arrangements allowed the simultaneous viewing of the sculptures in a rather straightforward and static way. The arrangement of the sculptural decoration of the villa mirrored nonetheless the complexity and inventiveness of its architectural planning and more elaborate solutions were designed that reveal some of the characteristics of Hadrianic aesthetics of sculptural display. A particular feature of the architecture of the villa is the great emphasis given to water as a meaningful part of the villa’s design that is reflected both in the creation of spectacular nymphaea and scenographic water plays, as well as in the pursuit of the aesthetic effects of the mutual combination of water with sculpture, of shadow and light. The use of water in the creation of architectural scenographies at Hadrian’s villa builds on a longstanding tradition. When we look at Roman residences, it is striking to note how deeply sculptures and water were interconnected. Romans loved water and their appreciation of the aesthetic effects of water in their private dwellings filled their letters and poems. Water was part of important architectural features in both public and private spaces: fountains were located in private houses not just for practical purposes but as a part of scenographic settings, in nymphaea, triclinia, and gardens. Undoubtedly, the setting of sculptures at the edge of pools and water basins enhanced the mirroring effect that played a meaningful part in the visual appreciation of sculptures in Roman life. Similar displays were common to many residences of the Roman elite, but reached their highest peaks in public settings and in the private residences of the emperors at Rome and in Latium. The villa of Tiberius at Sperlonga fully embodies similar attitudes, as water was used as the stylistic matrix and connecting element in the design of its reception spaces. The villa was built on the shores of a rocky and rugged coastline. A natural cave facing the sea was then adapted to be used as a monumental setting for the imperial banquets. In front of the cave, an artificial platform surrounded by water as a small island accommodated the emperor and his guests. A cycle of life‐size sculptures portraying episodes from the Homeric cycle was placed in the grotto and arranged around the edges and at the center of the pool. While resting on the platform the emperor and his guests could enjoy the view of the colossal sculptures that reflected their images in the water, in a fine display of mirroring effects.

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If pools and basins enhanced the mirroring effects of water in a relatively static way, the flow of water generated from fountains disclosed a different mode of watching sculptures. The remains of the so‐called Bagni di Livia, a monumental nymphaeum‐triclinium built by Nero on the Palatine and destroyed by the fire of ad 64, are a remarkable example of how imperial architects sought to create magnificent vistas, building on the aesthetic effects of water and sculpture interlacing in a monumental setting. Visitors descending the staircases located like the parodoi on either side of a scaenae frons of a theater, entered a semi‐subterranean courtyard where a monumental nymphaeum stood, its backdrop articulated into a series of niches. A waterfall fed the spouts situated behind the pulpitum. On the opposite side of the room, the emperor reclined on a bed framed by a niche, under a lavishly decorated pavilion with porphyry columns (Manderscheid 2004). From there, the emperor and his guests enjoyed the sight of a rich display of sculptures arranged into deep niches in close proximity with water running down the steps set against the walls of the fountain. A similar effect was pursued in the Coenatio Iovis of the Domus Flavia, built under Domitian roughly above the Bagni di Livia on the Palatine. The new monumental dining hall was symmetrically divided into three parts, an apsidal hall on the main axis, flanked by two large exedras decorated with niches and large oval fountains. The main dining hall opened on a squared peristyle with an octagonal fountain at the center. It is likely that the emperor dined at the center of the apse at the far end of the hall, surrounded by his guests, and that couches were also placed in the exedras. In light of the actual remains it is difficult to say how sculptures were originally arranged, but it is likely that they decorated the fountains as well as the niches in the exedras of the Coenatio Iovis, surrounding the emperor’s guests with a rich display of visual imagery, enhanced by the perpetual motion of water. Despite the marked differences in their architectural layout, the Bagni di Livia and the Coenatio Iovis shared similar attitudes regarding the arrangement of water and statues, as in both structures they interacted rather statically with the viewer, who got the best sight of the sculptural display without needing to walk around the buildings. It is at Hadrian’s villa that we see for the first time how the aesthetic effects resulting from the association of water and sculpture are intentionally sought in order to engage the visitor in the uncovering of the visual program displayed within the residence. The Building with Three Exedras at the villa is a remarkable example of such a dynamic interaction between water, sculpture, and the viewer. The general layout of the building resembles that of the Coenatio Iovis on the Palatine, as in both structures two semicircular exedras flanked a central, rectangular hall that opened on an uncovered portico space at the front. But although similar in their plans, the two buildings were conceived to respond to a different logic: the dining hall of the Domus Flavia was placed at the very end of a linear progression that set off from the Aula Regia and concluded in the monumental triclinium, where the emperor and his guests rested on their couches. The Building with Three Exedras, however, was designed to conform to notions of motion and dynamism that responded to the role of the building as a monumental passageway joining two separate areas of the villa: the porticus of the Pecile, a massive porticoed area partially built on an artificial platform, and the Nymphaeum‐Stadium, an extended garden in the shape of a stadium, with fountains and pavilions, that connected the Building with Three Exedras to the emperor’s main residence within the villa, the Building with a Fishpond. The Building with Three Exedras was organized in the shape of an L, with two groups of rooms that markedly differed in their general layout (Figure 16.1): an innovative setting of four porticoed areas surrounding a central hall on the north–south axis, that gives the name to the building, and a more ordinary covered space divided into smaller rectangular and apsidal rooms on the east–west axis. Although when looking at the plan of the villa the function of the building as a connecting space is pretty straightforward, ancient visitors experienced its spaces

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Figure 16.1  Hadrian’s villa (Tivoli). Reconstructed plan of the Building with Three Exedras. Redrawn by author from Kähler (1950, tab.9).

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in a very different way: while entering the building from the Pecile, visitors could not see anything that hinted at their final destination, as the presence of the rooms located on the east–west axis was concealed by narrow corridors and walls that surrounded the entranceways to the north–south axis of the building. The two main axes of the building were revealed by a visual sequence of framed vistas, but it was only walking along the edifice, moving through an intricate setting of openings interlaced by diverted passageways, that visitors could gradually find their way to the Nymphaeum‐Stadium. In this context, sculptures were carefully arranged in order to suggest to people how to move within the building and reach their goal. In the eastern exedra, two wide and deep niches opened around the portico that flanked a small semicircular garden with a square fountain in the middle. The two statue bases still in place suggest that standing sculptures originally stood inside the niches. Despite the number of windows and openings that characterized the architecture of this part of the building, the columns of the exedra prevented a clear sight of the statues inside the niches. In order to watch the sculptures free from visual interference the spectators had to move to one of the two passageways that connected the hall to the exedra and gaze out of the window opening (Figure 16.2). From there a powerful visual correspondence emerged between the statues in the niches and the water pouring out of the fountain positioned along the same visual axis. The motion of people throughout the Building with Three Exedras and the unveiling of its spaces was thus encouraged through the arrangement of a visual program that built on the aesthetic appreciation of the association of water and sculpture in a new and original way. The pursuit of the aesthetic effects of the combination of water and sculpture emerges even more clearly in the rest of the Building with Three Exedras. As in other parts of the villa, the

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Figure 16.2  Hadrian’s villa (Tivoli), Building with Three Exedras. Above: viewing of the sculptures in the niches of the eastern exedra: from (a) the wrong and (b) the correct position; (c) viewing of the sculpture from the main hall; (d) reconstructed view of a sculpture arranged in the northern niche of the eastern exedra, together with the fountain at the center of the exedra. Drawings and photos by the author.

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main area of the building was accessible through lateral entranceways that flanked a larger central opening, which allowed visitors to see the content of the building but prevented them from entering it directly. Approaching the building from the Pecile, a visitor thus stopped at the entrance, where a monumental fountain was arranged, topped by a group of sculptures and surrounded by standing statues displayed on 12 masonry bases. Water poured out from the openings placed on the top of the fountain and flowed over the statues, before falling along its sides. This dazzling vista was enhanced by the light coming from the above opening, while the fountain itself was surrounded by the shady spaces of the two entrance corridors that flanked it, of the portico of the Pecile and of the main hall of the Building with Three Exedras. Given the compact design of the fountain’s courtyard and the height of the surrounding rooms, the fountain was illuminated almost exclusively during the central hours of the day, when the vertical rays of the sun, shining down on the wet statues, created an attractive contrast between the fountain, the sculptures, and the adjoining shady spaces. Behind the fountain stood the wide central hall, with a semicircular niche at the end of its main axis. Two large windows flanked the niche, allowing the view of the semicircular exedra

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Figure 16.3  Hadrian’s villa (Tivoli), Building with Three Exedras. Reconstructed sketch of a niche flanked by two octagonal fountains in the main hall of the building. Drawing by the author.

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on the rear side of the hall. In front of the windows, in the small garden at the center of the exedra, stood two octagonal fountains, whose basins were raised at the same level as the base of the niche. Standing in front of the monumental fountain at the entrance of the Building with Three Exedras, the spectator watched the statues irradiated by the light of the sun in front of him, in combination with the sculpture emerging from the shadow of the semicircular niche at the back end of the hall (Figure 16.3). It is likely that the sculptures on the monumental fountain and the statue displayed in the niche shared a thematic or stylistic relationship. Whether or not this was the case, the connection between sculpture and water emerged in a powerful way. This interpenetration of water and sculpture was further emphasized by the presence of the two octagonal fountains adjacent to the niche that created again a sharp contrast between the game of light and motion produced by the flowing of water irradiated by sun and the shady immobility of the sculpture displayed in the niche. We can thus appreciate how the design of the sculptural display of the Building with Three Exedras was planned according to a consistent notion that provided for the association between sculptures and the combination water/light/motion and niche/shadow/stillness. We can only imagine how colors and shapes of sculptures could interplay with this general idea. A similar search for the effects of shadow and light in association with water characterized the setting of sculptures of other structures of the villa, notably the Maritime Theater. The building was extremely innovative and non‐canonical in its conception and has no parallels with any other structure of the villa, but the planning of its sculptural decoration reflected the same notions about the aesthetics of sculptural display that characterized the Building with Three Exedras. The planning of the Maritime Theater revolved around a circular portico delimiting a pool, at the center of which stood a small residence with a central peristyle surrounded by bedrooms, a tablinum, and small baths. Despite the circular shape of the Maritime Theater, a main axis was established by placing a monumental entranceway on one side and a rectangular niche under the portico at the opposite side. A fountain was placed at the center of the peristyle on the island, which marked the geometric center of the building and stood along its visual axis. From the monumental entranceway of the building, a spectator did not have any hint as to how the building developed inside and was encouraged to move toward the opening of the portico and enter it, in order to discover the unusual plan of the Maritime Theater. In doing so, the spectator walked along the main axis of the building, where a visual

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connection was established between the water of the fountain of the peristyle, irradiated by sun, and the sculpture placed in the niche at the far end of the building, in the shadow of the portico.

Conclusions

REFERENCES

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Despite the lack in the Roman sources of theories discussing the aesthetics of sculptural display, it is possible to reconstruct the way Romans looked at their statues. If the notion of appropriateness undoubtedly prevailed as one of the main and most powerful elements for assessing a sculpture or a sculptural display, nonetheless ideas about beauty permeated the way Romans viewed their statues. Even though taste and values changed across time and according to people’s identity and status, the ancient sources provide invaluable information for our understanding of Roman aesthetics: shape, measure, and proportions, as well as the accuracy in the details, and the fidelity of a statue to the object portrayed were commonly recalled as determining features of the quality of sculptures. The beauty of a statue did not necessarily involve ideas about stylistic consistency as beautiful, although stylistically different portions of a sculpture were valued as part of a whole beautiful figure. This chapter suggests that, reflecting the increasing popularity of the arrangement of sculptures as part of complex architectural settings, an aesthetics developed that influenced not just the way sculptures were considered per se but also the planning of their display. The designing process of the villa of Hadrian at Tivoli incorporated precise notions about the way sculptures were intended to be seen and valued by their viewers. These ideas embraced the appreciation for the multiple and mirroring effects of water in association with sculpture: water did not just provide a doubled reality but created a fragmentation of images that constantly varied with the changing of light. The multifaceted nature of water, generating reflections and games of light and motion, was therefore employed to generate new scenographic effects. The aesthetic message expressed by the innovations in the design of the decorative program of the villa went beyond the static approach based on the notions of duplication and symmetry, so clearly embodied in the scenarios of earlier imperial architecture. On the contrary, it focused on the multiplicity and variability expressed by people’s mobility, the motion of water, and the varying of light. The aesthetics that directed the design of some of the most inventive buildings of the villa thus referred to balance rather than symmetry, to dynamism rather than stasis. Hadrian’s composite and many‐sided personality, celebrated by the sources (varius, multiplex, multiformis, Epitome de Caesaribus, 14–16) and expressed in the many fields of politics, philosophy, literature, and architecture, was reflected correspondingly in the aesthetics that directed the planning of the sculptural display of his villa, resulting in one of the most outstanding and innovative creations of Roman imperial architecture.

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Wallace Hadrill, Andrew. 1988. The Social Structure of the Roman House. Papers of the British School at Rome, 56. Wrede, Henning. 1981. Consecratio in Formam Deorum: Vergöttlichte Privatpersonen in Der Römischen Kaiserzeit. Mainz: Philipp von Zabern. Zanker, Graham. 2004. Modes of Viewing in Hellenistic Poetry and Art. Madison: The University of Winsconsin Press. Zanker, Paul. 1988. The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Zanker, Paul. 1999. “Eine Römische Matrone als Omphale.” Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts. Römische Abteilung 106: 119–131.

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In the past 20 years, great efforts have been put into broadening our understanding of the role of art works in their architectural setting. Researchers have focused on the reception of sculptures in domestic architecture (Neudecker 1988), and more generally on Roman perceptions of decoration in the visual realm of the Roman house (Wallace Hadrill 1988; Gazda 1991; Clarke 1991). Studies on Roman perceptions and responses to statuary in both the public and the private sphere have also broadened the discussion on the perception and modes of engagement of the Roman viewer from the educated male citizen (Stewart 2003) to the perspectives and attitudes of non‐elite viewers (Clarke 2003). The aesthetic values that underpinned Roman appreciation of sculptures and imitation in the arts, with particular reference to the notions of decorum, eclecticism, and phantasia, have been considered by Helen Perry (2005), while Jaś Elsner has explored the act of viewing in the Greco‐Roman world both in texts and in the visual arts, assessing the variety and multiplicity of visualities that the Romans were able to apply to what they looked at (2007).

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