Villa of Tiberius - Sperlonga

Those who travel quickly along the Via Flacca often go unnoticed by this beautiful coastal complex including the Villa of Tiberius, the large Grotto and the Archaeological Museum. It is one of the main archaeological sites in Central Italy, for the considerable mass of structural remains, typical of maritime villas, for the naturalistic aspects of the site enhanced by the changes made by the Emperor and for the great profusion of ornaments and sculptures found here and in some preserved in the local Archaeological Museum.

Environment and History

This Villa is located on a hill near the Tyrrhenian Sea in southern Lazio, at the foot of a massive spur of the Ausoni Mountains. These barren mountains, which constitute an impassable barrier between the fertile Piana di Fondi and the coast, are now included in the Regional Natural Park of the Ausoni Mountains and Lake of Fondi. In 184 BC the censor L. Valerio Flacco built (perhaps by restructuring a pre-existing path) a daring hillside road that passed through here, joining Terracina to Gaeta: the modern Via Flacca partly follows this path.

At km 16.300 of the Via Flacca (modern panoramic coastal road which, parallel to the Via Appia, which runs inland, joins Terracina to Gaeta and Formia) stands the Archaeological Area of ​​the Villa of Tiberius. This site, beautifully located near the sea, is made up of the Imperial Villa (with the relevant CAVE) and the National Archaeological Museum of Sperlonga.

The sumptuous Villa of the Emperor Tiberius was built on a pre-existing villa of the Republican age; the first structures are in fact related to a late republican residence, possibly belonging to Aufidio Lurco (maternal grandfather of Livia, wife of Augustus). Tiberius (who succeeded Augustus in 14 AD) used this residence until 26 AD; in that year, worried about the occurrence of a landslide that hit him during a banquet, the Emperor preferred to move to Capri.

Villa and cave of Tiberius

The excavations allow an overview of the essential parts of the complex (which developed for a sea front of about 300 m.) Composed, in addition to the living and service areas, by spas and water reserves, and equipped with a mooring on the sea. The large natural cave (adapted with special interventions) housed the imperial triclinium with an indoor pool, connected to others outside used for fine fish farms. The interior of the scenic Grotto, in which the Emperor loved to spend a lot of time, was richly decorated with precious marble and mosaics and was furnished with monumental sculptural groups dedicated to Odysseus’ exploits (of all this’ in situ ‘there is almost nothing left … But… don’t worry too much, read on.

The richness of the marble finds of this site (and in particular of the Grotto) emerged in all its consistency during the construction works of the new Via Flacca (in 1957), a time in which a real revolt of the inhabitants (and in particular of women ) of Sperlonga prevented all the marble finds from being – as usual – engulfed by some large museum of the capital. This led the State to set up (in 1963) the Museum which is now located in the Archaeological Area.

This is one of the most beautiful museums in Italy : the highlight of the collection is the famous marble groups (Hellenistic style) dedicated to the adventures of Ulysses (Scylla’s assault on the hero’s ship, blindness of Polyphemus) and other sculptures always inspired by Homeric events. The museum collection includes numerous other valuable sculptural, decorative, furnishings and various artifacts that document the continuity of use of the Villa even after the Emperor’s abandonment, up to the Late Antiquity.