Temple of Vesta, Tivoli

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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