Tivoli

• PHOTOS

Since thermal waters were discovered in the hills east of Rome in the late republican period, Tivoli has been the retreat of the city's rich and famous. Set upon a mountain promontory overlooking the Roman countryside, the modern town of Tivoli encompasses its intact medieval core. Today two of Tivoli's major sites—the ancient villa of the Emperor Hadrian and the Renaissance garden of Cardinal d'Este—provide the settings for one of Context's most evocative itineraries.

We begin by being transported to private car to Tivoli (about 1 hour). As the car winds along the foothills of the Appennine Mountains, our docent (usually an art historian or archaeologist drawn from the Context network) will discuss the historical context of this area: the discovery of thermal springs and the construction of therapeutic baths in the 1st century B.C. as well as the exploitation of the Travertine limestone veins that would eventually provide most of the Travertine for the city. We will then arrive at Ha

Since thermal waters were discovered in the hills east of Rome in the late republican period, Tivoli has been the retreat of the city's rich and famous. Set upon a mountain promontory overlooking the Roman countryside, the modern town of Tivoli encompasses its intact medieval core. Today two of Tivoli's major sites—the ancient villa of the Emperor Hadrian and the Renaissance garden of Cardinal d'Este—provide the settings for one of Context's most evocative itineraries.

We begin by being transported to private car to Tivoli (about 1 hour). As the car winds along the foothills of the Appennine Mountains, our docent (usually an art historian or archaeologist drawn from the Context network) will discuss the historical context of this area: the discovery of thermal springs and the construction of therapeutic baths in the 1st century B.C. as well as the exploitation of the Travertine limestone veins that would eventually provide most of the Travertine for the city. We will then arrive at Hadrian's Villa, the palace and retreat of the Emperor Hadrian, constructed in the 2nd century AD at the height of ancient Rome's powers.

Hadrian's Villa is fundamental to understanding Roman antiquity, architecture, and the watershed reign of Hadrian. One could literally spend days here, but in the company of our docent we will pick it apart in about two hours, visiting some of the key parts in order to re-imagine what this 300-acre structure once looked like and—more importantly—how it affected the construction of villas for the next two thousand years.

Our understanding of Hadrian's architectural legacy will give even more meaning to its Renaissance echo: the Villa d'Este.

The 16th century mansion of the exiled cardinal Ippolito d'Este is our next stop, and our private car service will be waiting as we exit Hadrian's Villa in order to bring us back to the center of Tivoli and the Villa d'Este. We will have lunch on the terrace of this famous villa, which overlooks an intricate and startlingly beautiful complex of gardens and fountains. After lunch, we will descend into the gardens, which, after much restoration, claim to be one of the best preserved garden complexes of the Renaissance. With its numerous and magnificent fountain features, the Villa d'Este is famous in all of Italy for its lavish presentation of that most prestigious resource: water. As we make our way through the garden rooms, we will make connections between d'Este and Hadrian's Villa. Some of these will be conceptual: the use of water as an architectural material, for example. Others are quite physical: Much of the building material in the garden was pilfered from the ancient villa. When either we've exhausted the topic or the topic has exhausted us, we'll make a re-constituting stroll through the wonderfully intact medieval core of Tivoli and return to Rome.