Terrazza degli Innamorati e i Miti della Valle del Lago

Inaugurated on Valentine's Day 2015, the Terrace of Lovers overlooks Nemi's lake, the sanctuary valley and the ship museum. Panels and plaques recount myths associated with the valley.

Why it matters

The municipal administration opened the Terrace of Lovers on 14 February 2015 and dedicated it to myths of the lake valley, including those of Diana and Virbius, and Numa Pompilius and the nymph Egeria. Panels and plaques recount traditions associated with the lake.

What to notice

The terrace overlooks the lake basin, the Museo delle Navi Romane on the shore and the archaeological valley of the Sanctuary of Diana Nemorensis. The Rex Nemorensis, the priest of Diana's grove at Nemi, became widely known through James Frazer's The Golden Bough, first published in 1890. Virbius was the Greek Hippolytus, restored by the goddess and hidden in Nemi — his very name read as "twice born" — in whose precinct horses were forbidden. Egeria, counsellor of Rome's second king, was associated with a spring in these woods; miniature vases and ex-votos linked to her cult are preserved in the ship museum. Diana's own festival procession of 13 August, described by Ovid, and Caligula's celebration of the Isidis navigium on these waters complete the sequence.

Context and history

The terrace belongs to a deliberate season of civic enhancement in Nemi: the administration formalised and named a viewpoint that generations of visitors had found on their own, choosing Valentine's Day for the inauguration and the valley's love legends for the theme, and listing it among the town's official sights on the VisitNemi portal. The terrace's dedication draws on classical traditions associated with the sanctuary below. Related votive objects are preserved in the ship museum.