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Nero's Villa in Subiaco: the Imperial Whim From Which the City Takes Its Name
Along the Via dei Monasteri, a short distance from the Abbey of Santa Scolastica, lie the remains of Nero's Villa, an imperial residence dating back to 60 AD, so majestic that it gave Subiaco its name. The emperor dammed the course of the Aniene with three weirs, creating three artificial lakes — the Simbruina Stagna. It is from these sub lacus (beneath the lakes) that the name Sublaqueum, later to become Subiaco, derives.
Seventy-Five Hectares — Fifteen More Than Hadrian’s Villa
The villa extended across approximately 75 hectares between the Taleo and Francolano mountains, with pavilions on both banks connected by bridges — one in marble, as mentioned in medieval sources. The architects were probably Severus and Celer, who also designed the Domus Aurea in Rome. To reach this place from Rome, Nero ordered the building of the Via Sublacense built, a branch of the via Tiburtina.
A Lightning Bolt, a Banquet, a Damnatio Memoriae
Tacitus recounts that the emperor abandoned the villa after lightning struck the table during a banquet, considering it an ill omen. The complex remained inhabited until the 3rd century — Trajan refurbishing it — until the damnatio memoriae of Nero did the rest. In the Middle Ages, earthquakes brought the weirs down. Only the waterfall of the Laghetto di San Benedetto (Lake of St Benedict) survives to this day.
What Can Be Seen Today
The visitable part of the complex comprises a cistern, part of the baths and a nymphaeum. The latter, in the 6th century, was transformed by St Benedict into the apse of his first monastery, dedicated to St Clement. The greater section of the Villa lies on the other bank of the Aniene, and is still to be excavated.
