BOOKS AND LIBRARIES IN TIVOLI

I. TESTIMONIES AND DOCUMENTS OF LIBRARIES IN ANTIQUITY

The link of Tivoli with the literary and scriptural tradition is exceptionally old. The use of writing in Tivoli is traceable right from its origins, thanks to very ancient finds that provide evidence for almost all periods.

• In Grotta Polesini there are graffiti that date back to the Palaeolithic: a canid scratched on a pebble and various other animals incised on bone and small slabs of travertine, following an essentially "naturalistic" style.
• Another settlement rich in finds with graffiti is located at Porta Neola (San Vittorino); the decorative technique adopted for the objects found here consists in bands of incised dots, enclosed between meanders.

Many testimonies dating to the bronze age have been found in the territory of Colle S. Angeletto on the Via Maremmana Inferiore. They include an archaic inscription dating to the end of the 4th century BC, the earliest of the tiburtine area, since the famous cippus of Acquoria, now in the Museo Nazionale in Rome, is dated at least a century later.

The town of Tivoli enjoyed a period of renewed and extraordinary vitality at the urbanistic, cultural, economic and commercial level. To this period dates the Library of the Sanctuary of Hercules, one of the twenty-eight most important public libraries of antiquity.

• In the classical period, the library "(...) in Herculis templi satis commode instructa" was much patronized, since scholars could find in it all that was best, both in greek and latin, then available, including famous books like those of Aristotle.
• The sanctuary of Hercules at Tivoli represents one of the best known examples, in Lazio, of the architectural model of combined theatre and temple, also comprising a Museum and Library.
• Roman high society of the late republic and imperial periods turned Tibur into a fashionable holiday resort, so that the town became an extension of the political and cultural scene of Rome.
• The epigraphic remains of Tivoli preserve the record of the various scribae rei publicae among the apparitores municipales or subordinate officials of the magistrates of Tibur.
• Augustus is known to have administered justice under the porticoes of the temple of Hercules: "in porticibus Herculis templi" (Suetonius).
• The Library of the Sanctuary of Hercules was the last to disappear when all the roman libraries fell into disuse in the 4th century AD.

Without doubt the best known private library of the imperial period was that of the emperor Hadrian. At least two libraries have so far been certainly identified in the Imperial Villa.

• At the centre of the Villa's southern portico a large room opens up; the eight large rectangular niches set into its walls are the clearest indication of its intended use. This large hall, provided with an apsidal niche on its end wall, inspired the reconstruction of a roman library in the Museum of Roman Civilization at EUR-Rome; reproductions of the objects used for reading and writing in the ancient world are placed on shelves in its niches.
• All the objects displayed were produced by the Laboratory-Didactic Museum of the Ancient Book between 1979 and 2001.

continua: The library of the monastery of Santa Maria Maggiore