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Villa of the Quintilii

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Region	Lazio
Coordinates	41°49′53.143″N 12°33′8.935″E / 41.83142861°N 12.55248194°E / 41.83142861; 12.55248194
History
Periods	Roman Imperial
Site notes
Ownership	Public
Public access	Yes
Website	Official website

The Villa of the Quintilii (Italian: Villa dei Quintili) is a monumental ancient Roman villa situated along the Via Appia Antica just beyond the fifth milestone from Rome, Italy.

The ruins of this villa suburbana are so impressive in size and area that before they were first excavated the site was called Roma Vecchia ("Old Rome") by the locals as it seemed to have been at least a town and its history was unknown. The villa included extensive thermal baths and a nymphaeum both fed by its own aqueduct.

The villa's grounds extended even beyond the route of the Via Appia Nuova. A grand terrace overlooking the Via Appia Nuova, which dates to 1784, commands a fine view of the Castelli Romani district.

Today the archaeological site houses a museum and includes exquisite marble friezes and sculptures that once adorned the villa.

History

The nucleus of the villa built by the rich and cultured Quintilii brothers Sextus Quintilius Valerius Maximus and Sextus Quintilius Condianus (consuls in 151 AD) in the time of Hadrian (r.117-134), as shown by brick stamps found during the excavations of the reception rooms in 1984-87.

The emperor Commodus coveted the villa so much that he put to death its owners in 182 and confiscated it for himself. Commodus and subsequent emperors then extended and embellished the estate.

Discovery and excavations

In 1776 Gavin Hamilton, the entrepreneurial painter and purveyor of Roman antiquities, excavated some parts of the Villa, still called "Roma Vecchia", and the sculptures he uncovered revealed the imperial nature of the site:

A considerable ruin is seen near this last upon the right hand, and is generally considered to have been the ruins of a Villa of Domitian's nurse. The fragments of Collossal Statues found near this ruin confirms me in this opinion, the excellent sculptour strengthens this supposition...

There he found five exceptional marble sculptures, including an "Adonis asleep", that he sold to Charles Townley and later came to the British Museum, and a "Bacchante with the tyger", listed as sold to Mr Greville. The large marble relief of Asclepius found at the site passed from Hamilton to the Earl of Shelburne, later Marquess of Lansdowne, at Lansdowne House, London.

Several excavation campaigns were undertaken between 1783 and 1792 by order of Pius VI, with the aim of enriching the Pio-Clementino Museum, founded by his predecessor Clement XIV. Among the most famous sculptures discovered in this period, currently preserved in the Vatican Museums, the Glyptothek of Monaco and in the Louvre and private collections are the so-called Braschi Aphrodite and two executions of the Boy with the Goose. Of this group, a Christian alabaster coming from the excavations of 1792 and formerly in the Kircherian Museum, was donated to the modern Antiquarium of the Villa.

With the passage of the estate to the Torlonia family in 1797, systematic excavations were resumed to enrich the family's private collection. Between 1828 and 1829 the excavations were conducted by Antonio Nibby (who also made a topographical survey of the archaeological finds of the estate at that time), concentrated around the most evident ruins between the thermal baths and the so-called Maritime Theatre. Among other things, two columns in cipollino marble emerged from these searches, which Valadier used for the new facade of the Tordinona Theatre, also owned by the Torlonia family.

During the 1920s new discoveries were made completely by chance: the large headless statues of Apollo the Citharist and Artemis, today in the National Roman Museum at Palazzo Massimo, and in 1929 the remains of a villa at km 7 of the Appian Way where the quality of the sculptures found led to it being considered pertinent to the Villa dei Quintili.

In 1998 - 2000 a campaign of systematic interventions was conducted (promoted by the Superintendence of Archaeological Heritage of Rome) aimed at further exploring and making the main features of the villa visitable. On this occasion, new rooms of the private residential area and part of the reception area emerged, and the interconnection between the various spaces became more evident.

Excavation campaigns between 2002 and 2009 brought to light a large portion of the porticoed gardens, another large part of the reception area and the rooms of the tepidarium between the two thermal rooms of the calidarium and the frigidarium. Between the Appia and the central area, the ends of the xystus were excavated, almost 300 m long. The statue of Niobe in the antiquarium comes from the large nymphaeum on the Appia Antica.

In 2018, new excavations uncovered an extravagant and extraordinary winery and triclinium which features marble-clad instead of opus signinum treading areas and a distribution system with fountains of wine that flowed from the production spaces down into the cellar. The facility has equipment normally found in ancient Roman wineries, but the level of decoration and theatre indicate that it served a more unusual purpose of conspicuous production and potential vintage ritual for the elite of imperial Roman society. Triclinia (dining rooms) with wide entrances surrounded this winery area on three sides, their walls and floors covered in elaborate opus sectile with exotic marbles in geometrical patterns, indicating that the emperor entertained here around the theatrical spectacle of wine production. It is similar to the ceremonial winery of the imperial Villa Magna in Latium. It is dated to the reign of Gordian III (r. 238-244 AD).

See also

• Villa of the sette bassi

Notes

1. "A Walk along Via Appia Antica from Cecilia Metella to Torre in Selci". www.romeartlover.it. Retrieved 2023-08-08.
2. Catalogued by Paola Brandizzi Vittucci, La collezione archeologica nel Casale di Roma Vecchia (Rome) 1982.
3. A. Ricci, La villa dei Quintilii (Rome 1998)
4. Giuliana Galli, La Villa dei Quintili a c. di R.Paris, Electa 2000 p.29
5. Hamilton to Charles Townley, quoted in Cornelius Vermeule, 'Graeco-Roman Statues: Purpose and Setting - II: Literary and Archaeological Evidence for the Display and Grouping of Graeco-Roman Sculpture", Burlington Magazine 110 No. 788 (November 1968:607-613) p. 612.
6. "Endymion asleep on Mount Latmus, according to Vermeule
7. The "Adonis" and "Bacchante" appear in a list of "Ancient marbles found by Mr Gavin Hamilton in various Ruins near Rome since 1769", annexed to a volume of transcripts of the Hamilton-Townley correspondence, published by G. J. Hamilton and A. H. Smith, "Gavin Hamilton's Letters to Charles Townley" The Journal of Hellenic Studies 21 (1901:306-321); the Townley "Bacchante" at the British Museum is "merely a draped female with a bunch of grapes in the left hand and a panther beside the lower limbs" according to Vermeule; it had been called a "Libera" and "found by Mr. Gavin Hamilton, at Roma Vecchia", in Charles Knight, Guide cards to the antiquities in the British Museum 1840.
8. Vermeule 1968:612, noting A.H. Smith, in Journal of Hellenic Studies 21' (1901:316). Smith had identified the site as the Domus Quintiliana in The Lansdowne Marbles 1889. (Vermeule, ibid., note 14).
9. Dodd, Emlyn; Galli, Giuliana; Frontoni, Riccardo (April 2023). "The spectacle of production: a Roman imperial winery at the Villa of the Quintilii, Rome". Antiquity. 97 (392): 436–453. doi:10.15184/aqy.2023.18. ISSN 0003-598X.
10. Dodd, Emlyn (2022-07-01). "The Archaeology of Wine Production in Roman and Pre-Roman Italy". American Journal of Archaeology. 126 (3): 443–480. doi:10.1086/719697. ISSN 0002-9114. S2CID 249679636.
11. Dodd, Emlyn; Galli, Giuliana; Frontoni, Riccardo (April 2023). "The spectacle of production: a Roman imperial winery at the Villa of the Quintilii, Rome". Antiquity. 97 (392): 436–453. doi:10.15184/aqy.2023.18. ISSN 0003-598X.
12. Higgins, Charlotte (2023-04-17). "Lavish ancient Roman winery found at ruins of Villa of the Quintilii near Rome". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2023-08-08.

External links

• Lucentini, M. (31 December 2012). The Rome Guide: Step by Step through History's Greatest City. Interlink. ISBN 9781623710088.

• Ancient Roman buildings and structures in Rome
• Roman villas in Italy
• Museums in Rome
• National museums of Italy
• Commodus
• Houses completed in the 2nd century