Autopsy and empire: temporal collapse in the designed landscapes of ancientRome

摘要

In the outskirts of Rome, four kilometers southwest of Tivoli, lie the sprawling, majestic ruins of what may be the most resonant and temporally rich of ancient Roman designed landscapes, the Villa Adriana (figure i). Steadily documented by scholars and artists since the early Renaissance, the Villa, built by the Emperor Hadrian (reigned 117—138 ce) as a retreat and, at the same time, a seat of government, exemplifies on a grand scale the particular harmony between architecture and 'nature' that characterizes Roman domestic architecture from the late Republic onwards.1 The Villa is also remarkable for its cartographic character, in a sense mapping portions of the far-flung Roman Empire over its open terrain.2 Indeed, a fourth-century biographer ofthe Emperor noted that he: