Over 50 masterpieces that show the relationship between the Emperor Hadrian and Greece will be exhibited, many of them for the first time, in Italy from April 9 until November 2 at Tivoli’s Villa Adriana – a site on UNESCO’s World Heritage list. The event is expected to coincide with the semesters of Greece’s and Italy’s European Presidency in 2014 and will be hosted in the villa’s Antiquarium del Canopo. The exhibited items are loans from museums in Athens, Marathon, Piraeus, Corinth and Loukou.

The exhibition is titled "Hadrian and Greece. Villa Adriana  amid classicism and Hellenism" and curated by Elena Calandra and Benedetta Adembri. Hadrian is an important figure in Greece, where he is considered a visionary emperor who loved Athens. He is known for the architectural masterpieces he built in the Greek capital, such as the arch of Hadrian, the library and the aqueduct. Masterpieces travelling from Greece to be exhibited in Villa Adriana include Corinth’s caryatids, Hadrian’s head from Athens, statues of philosophers and the head of Herod Atticus, who was friends with the emperor, and Antinous from Patras.