Candelabrum, one of the Barberini Candelabra

Approximately nine hundred Villa rooms and corridors are known; two-thirds are well enough preserved to be recognizable and the rest were recorded in the past, chiefly by Piranesi. Whatever the original number, the nine hundred alone imply heavy staff responsibilities, and these, together with the setting and nature of Villa life, are the subjects here. Details of upper-class Roman daily activity and of the make-up and duties of an imperial household are available elsewhere; our objects are to …