You will receive a link to create a new password via email. The shows title is a playful riff on the filmDowntown 81, which starsJean-Michel Basquiat. Caligulas Horti Lamiani were significant in the emperors life, and death. Claudio Borgognoni, center, returned a vase to a container on the walls of the Nymphaeum Museum. Managed by Italy's Ministry of Cultural Heritage,. Archaeologists discovered a rich array of finds, including ceramics, glass, gems and coins. NADIA SHIRA COHEN The garden had a fountain sanctuary consecrated to the water nymphs camouflaged with hand-painted images of birds and branches, melting the border between home and garden in a court culture where little was as it seemed. Actual wild animals, including lions and bears, entertained the guests, as peacocks and deer roamed amid rosebushes, olive trees, fruit trees, and statues. The Colosseum is one of the most visited attractions in the city and attracts seven million tourists per year. Last month it was revealed that Pompeiians liked to eat out as archaeologists discovered an ancient fast-food outlet. Join MU Plus+ and get exclusive shows and extensions & much more! both for participants and those who enjoy spectating. Places for meeting and prayer: piazzas may be noisy or romantic, but always full of charm, Basilicas, small churches and futuristic buildings play leading roles in the Eternal City. Beneath a 1950s apartment block, archeologists discovered a luxury Roman villa with intricate mosaic flooding, also now transformed into an underground museum. These include Pompeii, which usually attracts in the region of 2.5 million visitors per year. It is not hard to imagine animals, some caged and some running wild, in this enchanted setting.. The new space, in the basement of Enpam, brings to light one of the mythical places of the empires capital, one of the garden residences loved by the emperors, said Daniela Porro, the museum director. The Horti Lamiani ( Lamian Gardens) was a luxurious complex of an ancient Roman villa with large gardens and outdoor rooms located on the Esquiline Hill in Rome, in the area around the present Piazza Vittorio Emanuele. At one, he accused a slave of stealing, chopped off his hands, hung them around the mutilated mans own neck, and then presented him as dinner entertainment. Among the stunning examples of ancient Roman artistry are elaborate mosaics and frescoes, a marble staircase, capitals of colored marble and limestone, and an imperial guards bronze brooch inset with gold and mother-of-pearl. At first he did sensible things, just your average home renovations. The two original Greek masks sit on styrofoam beds in the back room by a coffee vending machine. Terms of Use They were created by the consul Lucius Aelius Lamia, a friend of Emperor Tiberius, and they soon became imperial property. I doubt these new discoveries will do much to rehabilitate his character, she says. | The Museum Store is open seven days a week from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and open late until 9 p.m. on Wednesdays. With the name of Museo Ninfeo, Enpam has established a new underground archaeological site which is built around the ruins that were underneath the palazzo in the first place: the archaeological dig is the Nymphaeum (hence the name of the new museum) of the Horti Lamiani, a lavish complex with gardens (the horti), temples and an opulent mansion that were originally built by consul Lucius Aelius Lamia (lamiani). In an evocative eyewitness account, the philosopher Philo, who visited the estate in A.D. 40 on behalf of the Jews of Alexandria, and his fellow emissaries had to trail behind Caligula as he inspected the sumptuous residences examining the mens rooms and the womens rooms and giving orders to make them more costly. The emperor, wrote Philo, ordered the windows to be filled up with transparent stones resembling white crystal that do not hinder the light, but which keep out the wind and the heat of the sun.. In 38 A.D., for instance, he executed Naevius Sutorius Macro, prefect of the Praetorian Guard, who had helped him become emperor, per Encyclopedia Britannica. It is not hard to imagine animals, some caged and some running wild, in this enchanted setting. The science of antiquities department of the Sapienza University of Rome collaborated on the project. Then theres the Horti Lamiani (Lamian Gardens) which the emperors home was famous for. As reported by Suetonius, the Michael Wolff of ancient Rome, he never forgot a slight, slept only a few hours a night and married several times, lastly to a woman named Milonia. Per the, Today, the property belongs to pension management company, Sailko via Wikimedia Commons under CC BY 3.0, Michael from NYC via Flickr under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0, Dried Lake Reveals New Statue on Easter Island. For that, rent the movie. But thats exactly what happened at one corner of the citys biggest square. The last room is dedicated entirely to the eruption which destroyed the city and its inhabitants. (Photos here. Despite fears Caligulas ghost remained to haunt the gardens, they continued to be used at least until the Severan dynasty, lasting from 193 to 235 A.D. Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. ARCHAEOLOGY FANS, REJOICE. Whats happening in the city? The heart of the multi-ethnic Esquilino district. The pension fund headquarters shells out millions for the privilege of having such a historic home, but it gets a museum that increases its real estate value, and permission to dig an underground parking lot. Every epoch has left its mark here, starting from the Julio-Claudian period, when Caligula trasformed the Horti into an ante-litteram Domus Aurea, up to the Severans, who were responsible for the latest transformations of the very luxurious rooms: with its three thousand objects on display and thanks to reconstructions and videos, the museum tells tell extraordinary stories, painting a vivid picture of wealth and opulence in the empires capital but also of the real life. A new home in Los Angeles is hitting the market with a $350 million price tag. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy). Not quite. As researchers at Encyclopedia Britannica point out, contrary to a popular story, Caligula probably never intended to appoint his pampered horse, Incitatus, as consul. A historic drawing imagines sees the young emperor Caligula choosing a gladiator. A pipe of the Horti Lamiani bearing the imprimatur of the emperor Claudius. From classic ballet to contemporary dance, Rome is always moving. Putting the show together during the pandemic, it became somewhat of a love letter to New York, Gordon said, and a statement that yes there is still so much going, so much of interestnot in the Hamptons or Palm Beach per se, where all the pop-up galleries got so much press, but here in Brooklyn, Queens, from small artist-run spaces to 5,000-square-foot spaces. The exhibition runs through January 30. Here, in the Piazza Vittorio section of the city, 13 feet under the gleaming corporate lobby of the countrys leading medical pension fund, are the restored ruins of Casa Caligula. The second is an audio narration for visitors taking them around the Archaeological Park of Pompeii, including the Antiquarium, highlighting items of particular interest. Read Full Article At this time, only visits in Italian have been planned, but we recommend you write at the email address provided on this page and ask for tours in your own language. When the piazza and the surrounding buildings were created around 1880, there was talk of the amount of Roman remains found in the area, but at the time nobody really cared for saving them, apart from a few sensational findings. The shows are waiting for you. 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They also unearthed evidence of the natural life of the gardens seeds of plants and trees imported from Asia, and the bones of lions, bears, deer and ostriches. The butler, Anthony Senecal, showed me the original grandeur of the place, built nearly a century ago by the cereal heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post: the living rooms 21-foot-high gold-leafed ceiling, the gold-plated fixtures in the bathrooms, a dining room that is an exact replica of a meeting room in the Chigi Palace, 16th-century Flemish tapestries that faded when Trump blasted the living room with sunlight. For 10 years after the establishing of their headquarters on Piazza Vittorio Emanuele, the heads of Enpam had 35 archaeologists and 8 conservators work on the underground site with architects, engineers and other experts. The Museum's Canyon Caf is open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily and closed Tuesdays (hours subject to change). Known as the Nymphaeum Museum of Piazza Vittorio, the subterranean exhibit will include sections of the garden that were discovered by researchers under the remains of a condemned 19th-century. The Horti Lamiani were commissioned by Lucius Aelius Lamia, a wealthy senator and consul who bequeathed his property to the emperor, most likely during the reign of his friend Tiberius from A.D. 14 to 37. Still, everyone involved wanted to show off the remains of a Xanadu that Caligulas ghost was said to haunt. We may earn commission on some of the items you choose to buy. Animal bones in one of the hallway containers at the Nymphaeum Museum. Advertising Notice Downtown can be high and low, young and old, rich and poor, said Gordon, who cofounded his own place,Gordon Robichaux, in Union Square in 2018. [The Wall Street Journal], A painting of Tintin could set a new auction recordfor comic art in an upcoming Paris. Gardens animated by terraces connected by stairs, exotic gardens, pavilions covered with marble from all over the Mediterranean and brightly colored paintings. These spaces are archives of personal and public lives, repositories of creativity, the shows curator, artistSam Gordon, toldARTnewsin an email interview. Most of what we know about him comes from Suetonius, who wrote his classic The Lives of the Twelve Caesars about a century after Caligula ruled. Within the park in the center of Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II are the ruins of a monumental fountain, the Nymphaeum of Alexander Severus, as well as "the Magic Door." The latter is a small stretch of wall with a doorway framed by two strange figures. The first is a digital assistant which provides service information. He significantly expanded the emperors residence, and he brought from Egypt the obelisk that today graces St. Peters Square. The ruins of Caligula's imperial gardens are now on view at the new Nymphaeum Museum of Piazza Vittorio. Caligula moved in in 37 CE but didnt get to spend much time in debauchery there before his untimely yet inevitable demise. 1979. Archaeologist Mirella Serlorenzi, who was in charge of the excavation, describes the structures and artifacts that will be on display at the new Nymphaeum Museum in Piazza Vittorio. User registration is disabled in this website. Get our latest stories in the feed of your favorite networks. Caligulas ornate palace recalls one hollywood regency mansion: donald trump's mar-a-lago. [The New York Times], Turkish historian Filiz aman, an expert on manuscripts and miniature art, has diedat the age of 81. At present only local visitors from the Campania region of Italy can visit the museum. The empires most expensive colored marblethe porphyry that gave us imperial purple, giallo antico, beige breccia, white Greekcreated a kaleidoscopic perimeter for the terrace gardens. Thank you for reading. Emperor from 37 to 41 CE, Caligula was notorious for his tyrannical behavior, a much propagated reputation but one which is often disputed by historians. His luxurious streak, however, is immortalized in the remaining artifacts of his Horti Lamiani garden of delights, a monumental compound of villas, shrines, and a bathhouse encircled by curated, exotic landscapes. Given the descriptions of Caligulas licentious lifestyle and appetite for luxury, we might have expected the designs to be quite gauche.. There, just on the edge of the city, villas, shrines and banquet halls were set in carefully constructed natural landscapes. Italy relies heavily on its tourism industry. Researchers investigated the underground site at the same time the company was having a new office building constructed above it. Visitors will be able to see a section of the imperial garden, complete with artifacts including a marble staircase and elaborate frescoes. Other Roman emperors lived longer, had more fame, conquered more lands and ended more lives, but Caligula remains the favorite of many because of short reign of cruelty, sadism, extravagance, and sexual perversion made famous by Malcolm McDowell in the cult classic, Caligula. While parts of the movie are fiction, new facts have emerged about Gaius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, nicknamed Caligula (little boot) by his fathers soldiers, in the form of his extravagant house and garden, which has finally been excavated in central Rome and set to go on display. 2023 Smithsonian Magazine by Marilla Sicilia/Archivio Marilla Sicilia/Mondadori Portfolio via Getty Images), Museum of Art in Indianapolis, Monday, Sept. 24, 2007. The subterranean Nymphaeum Museum of Piazza Vittorio is set to open this spring following a $3.5 million excavation. The refurbishment of Antiquarium and its new iteration comes after a long and chequered history. . Caligula was a capricious, combustible first-century populist remembered, perhaps unfairly, as the empires most tyrannical ruler, Lidz says. Infact, its what went on in the underground levels of what Romans know as the palazzo Enpam, which houses the offices for the Health fund of healthcare professionals. Even if Caligula is one day rehabilitated, we will always have this very NSFWFrancesco Vezzolivideo-art portrayalof his court. Scholars have long debated whether Caligula, officially known as Gaius Julius Caesar Germanicus, was the sadistic lunatic described by his initial biographers or a victim of a post-assassination demonization campaign that gave him antiquitys worst bum rap. 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