Name of Object:

The Library of Hadrian

Location:

Athens, Greece

Holding Institution:

Benaki Museum

 About Benaki Museum, Athens

Date of Object:

1845

Author:

Théodore Achille Louis, Vicomte du Moncel

Inventory Number:

27884

Material(s) / Technique(s):

Tinted lithograph on paper

Description:

This representation is entitled Painted Stoa, referring to the colonnade (stoa) with monumental columns depicted on the right side of the picture. Nineteenth-century visitors to Athens referred to this monument by various names, such as Painted Stoa of Hadrian or Gymnasium, for its true identity was not discovered until after 1884, when systematic excavations commenced in the area of the Roman Agora (Forum Romanum). Recent archaeological investigation shows that this imposing colonnade is part of the propylon of the Library of Hadrian. Depicted at the edge of the propylon-incorporated in two columns- is a small Byzantine church. This is Hagioi Asomatoi sta Skalia (Incorporeal Saints at the Steps) of the eleventh century, and was demolished before the end of the nineteenth century, falling victim to the antiquarian extremism of ‘purifying archaeological sites’. The works of the artist-travellers who flooded into Greece during the nineteenth century are tangible testimonies not only to the illustrious past, but also to the landscape.

Citation of this web page:

Tsigkakou 1981, 200-201 "The Library of Hadrian" in "Sharing History", Museum With No Frontiers, 2025.
https://sharinghistory.museumwnf.org/database_item.php?id=object;AWE;gr;14;en

Prepared by: Tsigkakou 1981, 200-201

MWNF Working Number: GR 014