You may not find this terribly rewarding unless you're included here, so this is a good time for casual and random browsers to turn back before they get too caught up in the sweep and majesty of the proceedings and can't let go.
We're wrapping up our visit -- up the stairs to the double loggia and the ceremonial rooms again.
Through a number of themed rooms we didn't see earlier
That's the ceiling centrepiece in the Philosophers' Hall, with paintings by Zuccari and his workshop.
The Hall of the Glory of the Estes, also by Zuccari and his assistants
The grotesque faces certainly enhance the Glory of the Estes.
The Hall of the Hunt
A different kind of hunting, perhaps
The Hall of the Hunt
And on that note, we'll slip quietly out, suitably impressed by nearly everything here.
Still asleep -- oh, those lazy resident nymphs
This is an illustration of the villa and gardens in the era 1560-1575, evidently printed in Amsterdam (in the public domain)
We're off on further perambulations, with a little time in the cathedral if we can find it.
There's a story there. What could it be?
We're parading down the Via della Missione, passing some municipal offices on the right
And some timely street maintenance
The Via della Missione comes to an end here, and . . .
. . . briefly becomes the Piazza della Anunciata (we're near the beat-up old Chiesa Sconsacrata dell'Annunziata [i.e., deconsecrated]), and then . . .
. . . equally, the Via Mauro Macera, leading down to . . .
. . . the Via Campitelli.
The steps of the Via Campitelli lead down to a church. If we thought that we were catastrophically lost by this time, it would have helped to have known that the wall on the left is an outside wall of the Villa d'Este gardens, and that the Oval Fountain is precisely on the other side of it.
So this, alas, is not the Duomo -- it's called the Chiesa di San Pietro alla Carità in the Piazza Camptelli, but nobody's home. Directly behind that bell tower, inside the wall there, is the Fountain of the Organ.
We're just across the square from the Museo Civico di Tivoli (didn't get a photo), which is located in a 1729 that was used as a 'youth correction prison' after 1870 and, after the 1944 bombings, occupied the homeless until 1981, when restorations were undertaken and it was opened to the public in 2015 to host cultural exhibitions.
Now we are lost -- but at least we know, from the sign on the wall, that this is the Piazza Colonna.
Uh oh, now the Via Mauro Macera becomes, right there in front of us, the Piazza Taddei, and instantly thereafter . . .
. . . the Via Postera. This is all so confusing.
We're staying on the Via Postera, which is obviously going somewhere.
And we're passing by the oddly photogenic Vicolo Postera at a gallop, and guess what . . .
. . . there's the Duomo. The Basilica Cattedrale di San Lorenzo Martire, tucked away back in there, with its . . .
. . . 11th-12th century bell tower. Legends attribute the building of the church here to the Emperor Constantine in the early 4th century or to Pope Simplicius of Tivoli in the late 5th century, but it's first mentioned, in the Liber pontificalis, in the early 9th century. The first church was built over a 1st century BC basilica in the forum of the Roman city but was rebuilt in the Romanesque style, with its bell tower, in the 11th and 12th century.
It was rebuilt in this Baroque style between 1634 and 1652, consecrated in 1641 and completed with its portico on it in 1650. It's a single nave with 4 and 2 side chapels, and the interior decoration dates mostly from lesser known (to me) local artists from the early 19th century.
St Lawrence inhabits the vault, on his way up to heaven by the looks of it. No sign of the gridiron.
In the apse there are paintings of four saints hailing from Tivoli: Pope Simplicius and the martyrs Generosus, Symphorosa, and Getulius. The altarpiece shows St Lorenzo before the judges, by Pietro Labruzzi (1739–1805).
Getulius was said to have been a Roman army tribune who was baptized and retired to his estate in Tivoli, but he and his brother were beheaded in ca. AD 138 by the Emperor Hadrian, who had a grand estate of his own just down the road (the ruins which we'll see tomorrow). His widow Symphorosa and her seven sons were also martyred soon afterward for refusing to sacrifice to the pagan gods.
The notable exceptions to the 19th century local artists are that the Our Lady of the Sorrows painting on the altar of the Chapel of the Crucifix is by Guido Reni or his workshop, and in the Chapel of the Most Holy Savior there is a famous Triptych of the Savior by Benedictine monks of the Farfa Abbey, early 12th century (which, however, I failed to notice).
We also failed to notice the most remarkable work here; in the Chapel of the Deposition, this is a wooden set called the Descent from the Cross, created ca. 1220-1230 (photo in public domain).
Out the front door (still wondering where we are), next to, as it turns out . . .
. . . the 'ancient public washrooms closed to men'. Alongside which . . .
. . . there is this Mensa Ponderaria, the 'public weigh-house', a market facility for verifying the weights of products being bought and sold, comprising 'two marble mensae, or tables, with concave cavities of different sizes where the official weights were housed'. An inscription identifies the official responsible for it as Marcus Varenus Diphilus, magister Herculaneus, 'a powerful college connected to the cult of Hercules'.
The sign on the almost always closed gate dates it to the 1st century BC, probably to Augustus' time. Tour groups are permitted to view inside it for a few evenings a week July to September.
We're off up a likely looking hill, still . . .
. . . pondering our whereabouts, but . . .
. . . we've just popped out on the Piazza Rivarola near the Ponte Gregoriano.
It's well past time for at least a preliminary look of the famous bridge that's so wrapped up in the city's long history.
Well, there's a gorge there, sure enough.
There are the two temples, to the goddess Vesta and the Sibyl of Tibur. We'll go have a quick look.
The Via della Sibilla on the way out a sort of promontory, considered to be the 'acropolis' of the original town, extending along the rim of the gorge.
A welcome lookout
The river Aniene does a big loop after it takes the big fall near the centre of town, so we're looking across at the same gorge but 180° off in the opposite direction now.
The Vicolo Belvedere ahead
A wrong turn
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