Remains of the Entrance of Hadrian’s Villa near Tivoli

Luigi Basiletti, an accomplished Italian painter and graphic artist born in the city of Brescia (Lombardy), specialized in landscape views and antiquarian subjects. During his time in Rome, between 1814 and 1820, he became a close friend of Antonio Canova. Drawn with great skill and a light hand on the paper, this airy, picturesque landscape is a characteristic work by Basiletti. It depicts the town of Tivoli in the far distance at left and the surrounding hills, while focusing in the foreground upon a large ruinous building which seems to have been transformed into a farm house. Its architecture betrays its ancient Roman origins underneath layers of remodeling from the Middle Ages and later. At lower right in the scene, a peasant woman toils near a saddled horse. The sheet is inscribed below the scene in pen and brown ink: “Vestigie del entrata dela villa Adriana presso Tivoli.” Within the composition, the large ruinous building is inscribed on the tower in epigraphic letters in the same dark brown ink as the drawing: “SILITNEG ED.” This indicates that the drawing was intended as a study for a print, in which case the printing process would have reversed this inscription to read naturally as “DE GENTILIS.” The artist has also framed the composition with outlines in graphite. Further research will no doubt bring to light a related print.
The present work dates to around 1820, when the artist produced a number of views of Tivoli and nearby sites in the Lazio region. Many of Basilettti’s works appealed to foreigners passing through Italy on the Grand Tour at the time.
(Carmen C. Bambach; 22 February 2016)