Historic Hadrian Olive Oil Returns

Olive oil from Hadrian’s orchard is flow­ing again. The Roman Emperor’s sec­ond-cen­tury retreat, Hadrian’s Villa, has pro­duced 78 bot­tles for the ini­tial sale of this come­back prod­uct.

The 100-acre park and villa are in Tivoli, 20 miles east of Rome. The 3,500 olive trees in the park are all more than 200 years old.

Hadrian’s Villa cura­tor and his­to­rian Andrea Bruciati plans to mar­ket pro­duce from Villa d’Este, the adjoin­ing park built by Cardinal Ippolito II d’Este. He hopes to grow Pizzutellos there, an unusual oblong grape famed for its sweet­ness.

Cardinal d’Este brought the grape from France and the region’s annual Pizzutello fes­ti­val, which dates back to 1845, fea­tures a cos­tume parade and cel­e­bra­tion of this heir­loom grape.

Bruciati is com­mit­ted to the slow food move­ment, and he thinks the Villa Adriana and the Villa d’Este are the per­fect place to raise aware­ness of old agri­cul­tural ways. Six hun­dred thou­sand vis­i­tors visit annu­ally to enjoy the grounds.

“Safeguarding the artis­tic and cul­tural her­itage means not just pro­tect­ing the land­scape but also the pas­toral agri­cul­ture that in some way is its soul. Supporting the local oil with a ges­ture like ours means adher­ing to the spirit of the place,” the Telegraph reported Bruciati say­ing. ​“The olive groves can’t be a mere back­ground to the Villa because they are an inte­gral part of its per­cep­tion, in the col­lec­tive image of mil­lions of peo­ple.”

As a UNESCO site, Hadrian’s villa is devoted to safe­guard­ing intan­gi­ble cul­ture. Part of the UNESCO def­i­n­i­tion of intan­gi­ble cul­ture includes ​“knowl­edge and prac­tices con­cern­ing nature and the uni­verse,” which fits the goal of pre­serv­ing and har­vest­ing these revered olive trees.

Hadrian was emperor from 117 to 138 AD. A rare bearded ruler (he took his fash­ion cues from Greek philoso­phers), his villa pro­vided a gov­ern­ment retreat out­side Rome.

He was an ama­teur archi­tect and his huge prop­erty gave him space to con­struct libraries, tem­ples, baths, sculp­ture gar­dens, ponds, foun­tains and din­ing halls. In keep­ing with Hadrian’s love for knowl­edge and the intel­lect, the olive oil will be sold in the villa’s book­shop.

Bernard Frischer, founder of the UCLA Cultural Virtual Reality Laboratory, is a pio­neer in 3D com­puter mod­el­ing of cul­tural her­itage sites. His cre­ation of a 3D restora­tion model of Hadrian’s Villa is one of sev­eral projects he’s done of impor­tant sites in Italy.

“I am sure that Hadrian would have been delighted to know that his Tiburtine villa (note that he had many oth­ers) remains so well intact, that it attracts tens of thou­sands of vis­i­tors each year and that through the villa, his mem­ory is kept alive so many cen­turies after his death,” Frischer told Olive Oil Times.

“Certainly the cul­ti­va­tion of olive trees and pro­duc­tion of olive oil would have been an impor­tant part of what the Tiburtine villa pro­duced. From the oil made in the imme­di­ate vicin­ity of the villa today, it is clear that the soil and cli­mate con­di­tions were very favor­able for pro­duc­ing fla­vor­ful and abun­dant olive oil there.”

• Telegraph


• Virtual Tour of Hadrian’s Villa from Khan Academy