After two decades spent leading archaeological digs among the 1,900-year-old ruins of the former Roman emperor Hadrian’s sprawling Villa Adriana, Rafael Hidalgo Prieto thought he’d seen it all. Then the Spanish professor and his team discovered an imperial breakfast room unlike anything in the world. The palazzo area once featured a royal four-bedroom complex centered by a semicircular nymphaeum with a private dining area suspended over a pool of flowing water. Vaulted ceilings with niches for sculptures overlooked a marble triclinium—that is, a sumptuous Roman dining area where aristocrats enjoyed…
