Baths of Agrippa
| Baths of Agrippa | |
|---|---|
| Thermae Agrippa | |
 |
|
| General information | |
| Town or city | Rome |
| Country | Italy |
| Coordinates | 41°53′48.86″N 12°28′37.19″E / 41.8969056°N 12.4769972°E |
| Completed | 25 B.C. |
| Technical details | |
| Floor area | 10,000 square meters |
The Baths of Agrippa (Latin: Thermae Agrippae) was a structure of ancient Rome, built by Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa. It was the first of the great thermae constructed in the city, and also the first Imperial Bath.
In the bath's first form, completed in 25 BC, it was a hot-air room with cold plunge pools also known as a "laconian sudatorium or gymnasium". With the completion of the Aqua Virgo in 19 BC the baths were supplied with water and with the addition of a large open-air pool (Stagnum Agrippae).
Between the construction and Agrippa's death the Baths were open to the public with an entrance fee charge. This charge was typically a quadran. Upon his death in 12 BC Agrippa left the baths to the citizens of Rome to use free of charge in exchange for donating various estates to Augustus, creating the first public imperial baths.
The Baths of Agrippa were damaged along with many other structures by a large fire in 80 AD, but were restored shortly thereafter by Domitian.
The thermae was enlarged under Hadrian in the second century AD and later by the emperors Constantius and Constans in the fourth century AD. Sidonius Apollonaris mentions that the Baths of Agrippa were still being used in the fifth century.
In 599, Pope Gregory the Great transformed the Baths into a nunnery.
In the seventh century the structure (no longer in use after the Ostrogoths cut off the Roman aqueducts in the 530s) was being mined for its building materials, but much of the Baths were still standing in the sixteenth century, when the ruins were drawn by Baldassare Peruzzi and Andrea Palladio, among others.
Today just part of the circular wall of the rotunda remains.
Knowledge of the structure and location of the Baths of Agrippa is based on a small fragment of the Marble Plan that was discovered in 1900 as well as drawings made in the sixteenth century of the ruins while they were still standing.
...
Wikipedia