The
"Temple of Vesta" is a
Roman temple in
Tivoli, Italy, dating to the early 1st century BC. Its ruins sit on the acropolis of the city, overlooking the falls of the
Aniene that are now included in the
Villa Gregoriana.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"The name of the builder or restorer of the "Temple of Vesta" is Lucius Gellius, memorialized in the inscription on the
architrave. The
peripteral temple in the
Corinthian order surrounds its circular
cella, which is raised on a high 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...
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