The Horti Lamiani ( Lamian Gardens) was a luxurious complex consisting of an ancient Roman villa with large gardens and outdoor rooms. It was located on the Esquiline Hill in Rome, in the area around the present Piazza Vittorio Emanuele. The horti were created by the consul Lucius Aelius Lamia, a friend of Emperor Tiberius, and they soon became imperial property. They are of exceptional historical-topographical importance. Along with other ancient Roman horti on the Quirinal, Viminal and Esquiline hills, they were discovered during the construction work for the expansion of Rome at the end of 1800s.
The villa and gardens were scenically divided into pavilions and terraces adapted to the landscape, on a model of Hellenistic tradition. They were eventually filled with exceptional works of art, from original ancient Greek sculptures to exquisite frescoes and marble floors.
The Museo Ninfeo has recently opened on the site.
The land for the Horti Lamiani was originally a cemetery just outside the ancient Servian Wall but was purchased by Lucius Aelius Lamia (Roman consul in 3 AD) who developed the property at the end of the 1st c. BC. He seems to have bequeathed the property to his friend the emperor Tiberius, and it became imperial state property. Emperor Caligula loved the place so much he established his residence there and further developed the property. In an evocative eyewitness account, the philosopher Philo visited the horti in 40 AD and accompanied Caligula inspecting the elaborate residence and ordering rooms to be made more sumptuous.Philo: Legatio ad Gaium (Embassy to Gaius) Caligula was briefly buried at the site.Suetonius, The Lives of Twelve Caesars: Life of Caligula
The Horti Lamiani adjoined the Gardens of Maecenas and the Gardens of Maiani.Samuel Ball Platner; Thomas Ashby. A topographical dictionary of Ancient Rome, Oxford University Press, 1929, p. 269.CIL VI 8668. Under Claudius (41–54) the Horti Lamiani and Maiani were united and administered by a special superintendent ( procurator hortorum Lamianorum et Maianorum).CIL 06, 08668
Using the known location of the gardens of Maecenas astride the Servian Walls, the boundaries of the Horti Lamiani can be reconstructed: their western border ran along the ancient Via Merulana almost coinciding with the vicolo di S. Matteo (today no longer existing); to the north, the topographic limit was probably the ancient via Labicana, roughly corresponding to the current via Principe Eugenio. Otherwise, towards the valley between the Esquiline and the Caelian the boundaries remain uncertain: perhaps the Horti Lamiani were limited to the south and east by the ancient road at the bottom of the valley, which remains nameless, today traced from the current via Labicana and viale Manzoni.M. Barbera et al. La villa di Caligola, Un nuovo settore degli Horti Lamiani scoperto sotto la sede dell’ENPAM a Roma, The Journal of Fasti Online, http://www.aiac.org; http://www.fastionline.org p 8
The property survived until at least the Severan dynasty (193–235), when it had become the emperor's private property as shown by a stamped lead water pipe.CIL XV, 7333 By the 4th c. the gardens were no longer in use as evidenced by the statuary found broken in pieces and used in the foundations of a number of spas.
The Villa Palombara was built in 1620 in the ancient Horti Lamiani near the modern Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II of which the Porta Magica remains as the only vestiges. The palace was destroyed between 1882 and 1887, together with the nearby villas Altieri and Astalli to make way for the construction of the new Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II.
In the 19th century Rodolfo Lanciani noticed ancient remains in building works in the area and found beautiful sculptures in subsequent excavations he organised. Decorations of the complex included frescoes, architectural elements in coloured marbles, and innumerable gilt-bronze sheets with inset gemstones. He reported:
A collapse of land had revealed an underground chamber (cryptoporticus) full of statues. The first to appear was a semi-colossal head of Bacchus, crowned with ivy and corymbs and eventually others appeared:
Parts of the complex of the Horti Lamiani were brought to light in these excavations but were quickly re-buried.
Other important sculptural finds connected with the gardens are the so-called Ephedrismòs (in the Capitoline Museums) from the Piazza Dante and the statues at the Centrale Montemartini from the thermal complex of via Ariosto. The statues became dispersed in various museums and their exact provenance was lost, but in recent years their provenance has been painstakingly reconstructed by Häuber.HÄUBER CH., “The old finds (before 1870)”, in Tranquille dimore 1986: 167-172. HÄUBER CH., “The new findings (after 1870)”, in Tranquille dimore 1986: 173-200.
The unity of the archaeological context was recreated for the exhibition "The quiet abodes of the gods" in 1986Maddalena Cima and Eugenio La Rocca (edited by), The quiet abodes of the gods: the imperial residence of the Horti Lamiani , catalog of the exhibition (Rome, May-September 1986), Venice, Marsilio, 1986, ISBN 88-7693-022- 1 . Tab in Open Library based on the archives of Lanciani and on municipal deposits.
Excavations in 2005–6 took place during the construction of metro line A in the gardens of Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II.S. Barrano; D. Colli; M. Teresa Martines. Un nuovo settore degli Horti Lamiani, 2007, pp. 1-13. and identified a building nucleus of about 160 m2 and about 50 m north of the crytoporticus complex. These are datable between the end of the 1st century BC and the middle of the 3rd century AD and involve successive modifications of rooms around a mosaic-paved corridor and their repaving.
Between 2006 and 2009 excavations found unknown areas of the Horti Lamiani under the future ENPAM building, where Lanciani had documented the long cryptoporticus with an alabaster floor and precious wall decorations, punctuated by columns in precious yellow giallo antico marble with bases in gilded stucco.Mariarosaria Barbera et al., La villa di Caligola: Un nuovo settore degli Horti Lamiani scoperto sotto la sede dell'ENPAM a Roma, 2010, pp. 1-59.
Studies of the site using archaeobiology techniques have uncovered the types of plants that the garden would have contained in Roman times. Evidence has been found for the existence of pear, apple and olive trees, ornamental shrubs such as Buxus and Taxus baccata, and flowering plants such as buttercups and carnations. Overall, 40 different plant taxa were found which suggests that a vegetable garden may have been present alongside the larger ornamental gardens.
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