Canopus Garden, Hadrian's Villa

Lunch with the Maenads

Tivoli and Hadrian's Villa were both excellent. Our class returned this evening under a beautiful striated sky, one of those immense muscular Roman cloud-mountains towerin on the western horizon, the dying sun tinting it with fuscia and salmon, blue and purple. The Villa d'Este at Tivoli was, by far, my absolute favorite, with its endless tree-lined alleys, high hedge walls, mythological fountains and wild wonders, including that strange and marvelous device, a Renaissance water-organ whose tunes took me back to the purpled days of Ippolito Cardinal d'Este so many centuries ago. We spent most of our time simply scribbling away at our sketchbooks for an assignment, so I wasn't really able to sit back and relax, but the fountain-cooled atmosphere, filled with beautiful icy spray and steam amid the heat, amid the eternal splash of cascading water, was a balm to my exhausted senses. We'd spent the morning trudging around Hadrian's Villa, which proved somewhat of a disappointment for me, as very little definitive really remains. Hot, unshaded, and largely barren, like the burnt-out pagan empire of which it had been one of the last real flowerings.

Speaking of balms, a couple of my pals, the lovely and talented girl architecture students V. and A., devised a different salve of their own around noon today in Tivoli. A sort of low-key, buttoned-down, mostly-sober, fully-clothed Bacchanalia, in this case. (V. told me I could write about it, don't worry). After deciding not to sell one of my kidneys to finance a three-course lunch at the place where the faculty was going to eat, I joined the two of them for a much more modest repast in a tiny hole in the wall with a view out the window like a Lorenzetti landscape under an eye-searingly blue sky. And heavenly pasta, the very noodles as flavorful as a whole meal back in the states. It was marvelous.

The two girls ordered a whole liter jug of wine, not knowing how big (or small) it was. I was just in the mood for mineral water--I don't drink anyhow, not now at least--so we soon realized between the two of them, they had a lot of wine on their hands. After tasting the rosso moderately, V., right out of the blue, asked for my empty water bottle and then, suddenly, goes and pours the wine into it straight out of the jug! For future reference, so to speak. I mean, she'd bought it already, after all, and it wasn't like she could finish it off anyhow. The waiter didn't seem to mind, though, of course, he never saw us do it...uh...er... Changing subject.

Even the small amount they drank started to influence their constitutions slightly. Not much, but enough for it to be endearing, in a weird sort of way. Plus, V. gave me a rather interesting play-by-play description of becoming lightheaded as we went back to the bus.

V., she's usually such a quiet, thoughtful girl (and she was even after finishing her glass, only more at ease), and doesn't drink usually, so it was especially comical that she initiated the pouring maneuver. The whole thing was hilarious, frankly, and would have been even without the influence of wine. We all managed to find our way to the bus (aren't I glad I stuck to the water?) though my two dear friends were delightfully relaxed for a little while afterwards. Well within reason, of course.

Ah, they're both good girls. Really.

There were still much hidden gold amid the scrub and sun of Hadrian's desolate ruins. The so-called Small Baths, even in their gutted state, were, amidst all these vague trenches and smashed columns, a real architectural revelation. Every room had a different and exotic shape, exedrae and apses and curving corners like a Borromini haunted house house, each vaulted with amazing expertise and craftsmanship. If you looked hard enough, you could find a heartbreakingly beautiful sliver of intricate polychrome marble pavement or a fragment of geometric fresco or mosaic, ghosts of their former, mind-boggling glory. Besides the Baths, there was much else worthy of note. The semicircular gourd-roofed triclinium at the end of the long Canopus canal was a dining room spun from sheer fantasy. And while the Piazza d'Oro is all but gone, it was a true honor to stand where that ancient grandfather of baroque, that marvel of shape and space once stood.

For a depressive misanthropic epicure, Hadrian was a true genius in the realms of the arts. On the other hand, he did kill his father's favorite architect, Apolodorus of Damascus, after he protested about the Emperor's back-seat drafting. Once again, one of the many problems of working for an absolute monarch in a bedsheet. Not something I want to look into. Hanging out (and being lost) with low-key Maenads is about as death-defying as I'd like to go this trip.