Villa Adriana
Villa Adriana spreads across Tivoli, Italy, as a vast Roman residence with gardens, water basins, fountains, and more than thirty monumental buildings. UNESCO recognises the site as a World Heritage Site.
Emperor Hadrian began the complex around AD 120, shaping a retreat that later served as his official residence and welcomed successors. Roman concrete enabled curved forms, complex symmetries, and ambitious architectural experiments throughout the grounds. Aqueducts supplied the pools and fountains, revealing the engineering behind its ornamental landscape.
The Canopus follows an Egyptian model with a long reflecting pool, while the Pecile recalls Athens. The circular Maritime Theatre encloses a central island, which served Hadrian as a private retreat. Egyptian-style buildings and statues sit alongside Greek and Roman elements, reflecting the emperor’s travels across the empire. After the Roman Empire declined, the complex fell into disuse and many treasures left the grounds.
- City
- Tivoli
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Take this page with you
The myTuur app is free, and once you are standing at a spot its story starts by itself.
Spots like this one are the stops myTuur strings into tours through Tivoli. In the app, each story begins where you stand: walk up to a spot and it starts, read it on screen or listen as you go, then follow the route to the next one.
What is myTuur?
myTuur is a free city-guide app. Its tours are built from spots, and each spot carries a story that starts when you get there, to read or to listen to as you like.