The Nemi Ships

Home to the world’s first superyachts

Professor Giuliano Di Benedetti, architect, historian, essayist and author, has spent a lifetime studying Nemi and its mysteries. Estela Yachting’s Francesco Gennai travelled to Nemi to meet him.

Born in the Castelli Romani in 1943, Giuliano Di Benedetti has authored numerous history books, but he has made studying Lake Nemi and its ships his life’s work. The preeminent expert on the topic, his research and resulting theories may border on science fiction, but de Benedetti’s only mission for decades has been to uncover the truth. It is a cold morning at the end of January and from Genzano, Professor Di Benedetti and I walk along the road that runs along the lake of Nemi until we arrive at the ‘Museo delle Navi’. At the entrance, we find a majestic Roman cornice, evidence that this lush, green place once had a glorious past. “In these places, the story took place for real”, the Professor says. “Julius Caesar, Cleopatra, Caligula, Dante, Leonardo da Vinci, Mussolini. All passed through here and history will unite them forever in these places.” We enter the museum, but there are no ships. “Where are they?” I enquire. Di Benedetti starts from the beginning. Nemi ships Part of Caligula’s project was to make Nemi the religious centre of the Roman Empire. Romans worshipped the gods and the greatest goddess of all was Diana, the huntress, twin sister of Apollo, also known as Queen Isis, protector of sailors and twin sister of Horus. Other aliases include Latonia, Lucina, Luna, Juno, Trivia and, in hell, Proserpina. The greatest temple in the Roman empire was located in Nemi, devoted to worshipping Diana, whose legend and powers became conflated with other deities. She was also seen as goddess of the moon, of woodland, fertility and childbirth. From the temple in the volcanic hills of Nemi, Romans saw Diana’s image in the moon’s reflection on the lake below. Caligula wanted to take his worship one step further; he wanted to worship on the lake itself as the Egyptian Pharaos had. The Nemi ships were born Caligula discovered the cult of Isis during his travels to Egypt with his father Germanicus, where he heard the legend of the sacred temple dedicated to Queen Isis. The mythical goddess of fertility and motherhood and was considered an ‘alter ego’ of the roman goddess Diana.

Credit: Wikipedia

Mark Antony’s daughter, Antonia, had taken in young Caligula after the death of his adopted mother, giving him an insight into the Egyptian way of family living. Why Nemi? Nemi, the town, sits nestled in a sacred grove above the eponymous lake and was considered a place of worship from the mid 500s BC, dedicated to goddess Diana Nemorensis, the huntress. Taking its name from the Latin ‘nemus’, or ‘sacred forest’ , the Nemorensis Lacus became known as ‘Diana’s Mirror’ since the lunar reflection on its waters could be seen from the temple above, on the north-eastern side. Diana —or in Greek mythology, Artemis, daughter of Zeus and sister to Apollo— was the guardian of conception and childbirth, goddess of the moon, and protector of slaves and of animals. The temple drew emperors and important worshippers from Rome and beyond. Nemi was also a magnet for the sick, hoping for mystical healing powers to cure their ailments, as well as expectant mothers praying for a healthy birth. As a centre for paganism, writers, artists and poets would come here for inspiration over many centuries. An annual three-day festival was held here each August, with the town and lake lit up by flame torches all around. Intended as a festival for captive and liberated slaves, and for animals, no hunting or persecution of either was permitted during these days. To participate in its processions was to “take refuge in the eternal world of the sacred, cool, shady, and nurturing”, Professor Carin Green, historian at the Department of Classics, University of Iowa, wrote in her study of Nemi’s rituals.

Diving pioneers For centuries, fishermen on Nemi had reason to think that there was a large wreck lurking at the bottom, with nets routinely getting snagged on something big. Being a small lake, the notion that there could be anything like a large ship lying below was dismissed. But after years of local fishermen pulling up ancient, valuable artefacts, and selling them at market, a young cardinal and nephew of the pope decided to investigate in 1446. That year, renowned architect Leon Battista Alberti was commissioned by Cardinal Prospero Colonna to recover what is in the waters of Lake Nemi. But shortly after starting work, Alberti abandoned the effort, frustrated by the difficulty of the project and its lack of progress. Another world-famous historical figure, Leonardo da Vinci, had developed a way of draining swamplands in the Agro Pontino region next to Rome and was summoned by the cardinal to assess the feasibility of using the same method to drain Lake Nemi. Da Vinci submersed the lake in a specially-made diving bell, but established that the wreck was too large and that recovery wasn’t viable. In 1535, Francesco De Marchi, an engineer of fortifications, explorer, mountaineer and writer, tried again. He started his mission using top secret equipment, custom made by Mastro Guglielmo di Lorena, which would enable him to stay under water for hours. He dived with the first known iteration of a diving suit, consisting of a wooden frame with a diving bell that left hands and feet free. De Marchi describes in detail his underwater experience in his work ‘La Barca di Trajano’, indicating the size and shape of the ship and its position. At 18m depth, it was possible to discern that a structure was down there, but aside from some planks, they had no luck in recovering anything substantial. However, the planks suggested a large structure was there and the quest to recover it continued. As diving technology began to develop, more excursions followed and many important and valuable items were removed illegally. However, not until the 1920s would

it be known precisely the scale of what lay below. Benito Mussolini ordered the lake be drained, with an ancient Roman cistern reactivated and the water level lowered by 20 metres. Only now did it transpire that there was not one wreck, but two. The first superyachts Man’s earliest superyacht, the ‘prima nave’ measured a huge 73 metres in length, the same as an Airbus A380, with a beam of 24 metres. Its support vessel came in at 70 metres and would not be raised until 1932, because of the length of time it took to raise the first wreck. The ship’s superstructure housed palaces, gardens and baths, adorned with bronze statues and marble floors, creating a floating paradise. Perhaps the most remarkable feature recovered were pristine lead plumbing pipes, embossed clearly with ‘Gaius Caesar Augustus Germanicus’, suggesting that the ships carried hot and cold running water. It also put beyond question by whom they had been commissioned. The design of this edition of ‘The Y’ was inspired by the original mosaics found on the Nemi Ships. White, green and red are symbols of the the goddess Diana, with white representing the moon, while green signifies woodland, and red is the colour of the world of the dead.

Both ships had several hand operated bilge pumps, working like modern bucket dredges,

Mussolini at the dedication of the museum housing the Nemi ships, 1940.

Credit: Carlo Cestra Digital Productions

the earliest examples of this type of pump. Piston pumps supplied hot and cold running water through lead pipes, using the hot water for baths and the cold water for fountains and drinking water. This early pump technology was not found again until the Middle Ages. Having discovered this historically important invention, the Italian government decided to build a museum at Nemi, designed to house the two ships, the first time a dedicated museum had been erected. However, in WWII, the museum suffered an explosion and the two ships lost in an explosion that started a catastrophic fire. Italian officials later filed an official report stating that retreating German forces had burned down the museum, though Professor Di Benedetti doubts this version of events. Investigating documents relating to the fire, it transpired that the intensity of the explosion and fire wouldn’t have been sufficient to destroy the ships’ booms, which were not recovered. Di Benedetti’s theory is that someone had attempted to steal them in a burglary gone wrong. A third ship? Studies by Professor Di Benedetti revealed that a third ‘mega yacht’ is still lying in the lake. “The trinity of the goddess Diana (Isis) suggests that there were probably three ships, while reports written by Francesco De Marchi and other divers that visited the wreck do not tie in with the two ships recovered in 1928. These reports speak of a ship 150 meters long and 70 meters wide. Secondly, de Marchi noted that the wreck was positioned on another side of the lake, under Genzano, whereas the other two ships recovered under the town Nemi.

“Why didn’t they find it in 1928”, I ask. “There was a huge landslide in the 19th century that probably covered the ship, and we are now searching under the earth. Trust me, there is something huge there”, says Di Benedetti. “The biggest archeological discovery is a Roman ship 150 metres long!”, he adds. Caligula re-made New studies and recent reviews are refuting the classic Caligula biography and a completely different person is emerging. In her book, “Caligula”, the archeologist and historian, Maria Grazia Siliato debunks all the rumours and accusations that have come to characterise the “mad” Caligula. Analysing facts and challenging paradigms, she arrives at an image of an unacknowledged genius, assassinated by senators’ conspiracy for their personal interests. Caligula conceived a political project that would make all Mediterranean populaces within the vast empire direct citizens of Rome, which only came to pass a century after his death. The vision may have been his undoing, as direct taxation would flow to Rome, rather than to the many fiefdoms created by the ruling class that surrounded him. Caligula was an intelligent man, by all accounts. Having been exposed to Egyptian culture on his travels, his wonder fuelled

Tip: If we have whetted your appetite to visit Nemi, consider combining your trip with a drive to Antonello Colonna’s Valle Fredda Resort in Labico, just half an hour inland. This ultra modern interpretation of a rural retreat, in concrete and glass, is a Michelinstarred restaurant, hotel and spa, making a stark contrast from the region’s Roman architecture.

a thirst for knowledge that saw him devour his forefather Augustus’ vast library, leading some to think him mad from a young age.