Temple of Vesta, Tivoli

The circular so-called "Temple of Vesta" at Tivoli, of the early first century BCE, has been widely admired since the Renaissance. Its ruins sit on the acropolis of the Etruscan and Roman city of Tibur (now Tivoli), overlooking the falls of the Aniene in a picturesque narrow gully.

It is not known for certain to whom the temple was dedicated, whether to Hercules, the protecting god of Tibur, or to Albunea, the Tiburtine Sibyl, or to Tiburnus, the eponymous hero of the city, or to Vesta herself, whose more familiar circular peripteral Temple of Vesta is to be seen in the Roman Forum. A rectangular temple stands nearby, equally difficult to attribute, often called the "Temple of the Sibyl" [It was preserved from delapidation as the "Church of San Giorgio".]

The builder or restorer of the "Temple of Vesta" is less mysterious, for his name, Lucius Gellius, is memorialized in the inscription on the architrave. The peripteral temple in the Corinthian order surrounds its circular cella, which is raised on a high [Height 2.4m.] brick podium clad in blocks of travertine: the cella has a door and two windows. The "ambulacrum" that surrounds the cella had eighteen Corinthian columns (ten remain standing). The frieze is decorated with carved garlands and bucrania.The comparatively good condition of the temple is owing to its Christianization as a church, "Santa Maria della Rotonda". [The same name was given to the Pantheon, Rome, which was similarly preserved through Christianization.] The Christian accretions were removed in the late nineteenth century.

Careful measured drawings of the 'Temple of Vesta" were published by Antoine Desgodetz (1682) [Antoine Desgodetz, "Les édifices antiques de Rome dessinés et mesurés très exactement par A. D. architecte" Paris 1682.] who gave elevation and plan as well as carefully rendered details of the carved capitals and the frieze. in the following century both Giuseppe Vasi and Giovanni Battista Piranesi made etchings and engravings of the "Temple of Vesta". The "Temple of Vesta" provided a model for many features in English landscape gardens, such as William Kent's "Temple of Ancient Virtue" at Stowe, Sir William Chambers' "Temple of Solitude at Kew, or in France Richard Mique's "Temple of Love" in his "jardin anglo-chinois" at the Petit Trianon. Sir John Soane's drawings, which he used as comparative examples in his lectures, are preserved at Sir John Soane's Museum, London. [ [http://www.soane.org/drawings/index.cfm?startrow=200 Concise catalogue] ] A version of the "Temple of Vesta" in northern California was set as a landscape feature in the English tradition; the "Sunol Water Temple" was designed in 1910 by California architect Willis Polk for the Spring Valley Water Company to mark the spot in California's Sunol Valley where the waters came together to supply San Francisco [ [http://www.verlang.com/sfbay0004ref_wp_5.html#niles_canyon_pleasanton-sonol_paloma Sunol Water Temple] .]

Notes

External links

* [http://www.romeartlover.it/Tivoli.html Roberto Piperno, "Giuseppe Vasi's Digression - Tivoli - part one: the Roman town"]
* [http://www.tibursuperbum.it/eng/monumenti/templi/TempioVesta.htm (Tibur Superbum) The Temple of Vesta]
* [http://rubens.anu.edu.au/htdocs/bytype/arch.sources/desgodetz/display00038.html Desgodetz's engravings]
* [http://www.verlang.com/sfbay0004ref_wp_5.html#niles_canyon_pleasanton-sonol_paloma Sunol Water Temple]