Description
The Domus Aurea, the "Golden House" of the emperor Nero, was an enormous urban villa in the heart of Rome, between the Palatine, the Esquiline and the Caelian. Today you can visit its pavilion on the Oppian Hill: underground rooms with frescoes that inspired Raphael and Michelangelo.
Nero had it built after the great fire of AD 64, taking over dozens of hectares. The name comes from the gold that gleamed in the decorations. The architects Severus and Celer designed woods, vineyards and an artificial lake, where the Colosseum later rose. More than a palace, it was a landscape: modeled on the seaside villas of Campania.
The Oppian pavilion, the private part, has about 300 rooms but no bedroom, no kitchens and no latrines: it was a villa for parties. In the marble-clad halls, among niches and exedras, the sunlight gathered or scattered. The grotesques on the vaults, with figures and plant decorations, set a fashion.
The octagonal hall has a dome that, according to Suetonius, rotated day and night: but it is not certain it was this one. A recent discovery is the Hall of the Sphinx, brought to light in 2019: a vaulted room 4.5 meters high, with frescoes of the god Pan, panthers and sphinxes, buried for almost two thousand years.
At the entrance to the villa, on the Velia, stood a colossal statue of Nero as the sun god, about 35 meters tall, with a crown of seven rays: from it the nearby Colosseum took its name. The portico around the lake, according to Suetonius, had three rows of columns and measured a mile.
The Romans loathed this palace, made with goods seized from citizens and statues taken from temples, even at Delphi. After Nero's death, in 68, his successors stripped it and built over it. Martial complained that a single house took up an entire city.
Vespasian drained the lake to build the Flavian Amphitheater there. After a fire in 104, the Baths of Trajan, inaugurated in 109, were built over the Oppian pavilion. Paradoxically this was its salvation: the earth protected the frescoes from humidity.
At the end of the 1400s a boy fell into a hole on the Oppian Hill and found himself in a cave covered with painted figures. Soon artists had themselves lowered in on ropes: Pinturicchio, Raphael and Michelangelo discovered ancient painting this way, and those decorations took the name of grotesques.
Don't miss
• The grotesques.
• The octagonal hall.
• The Hall of the Sphinx.
• The artists' signatures.
Did you know?
• On the walls you can read the signatures of those who lowered themselves into the halls: from Domenico Ghirlandaio and Filippino Lippi to Casanova and the Marquis de Sade.
• In 1980 the surviving part entered the UNESCO list, together with the historic center of Rome.
Nero had it built after the great fire of AD 64, taking over dozens of hectares. The name comes from the gold that gleamed in the decorations. The architects Severus and Celer designed woods, vineyards and an artificial lake, where the Colosseum later rose. More than a palace, it was a landscape: modeled on the seaside villas of Campania.
The Oppian pavilion, the private part, has about 300 rooms but no bedroom, no kitchens and no latrines: it was a villa for parties. In the marble-clad halls, among niches and exedras, the sunlight gathered or scattered. The grotesques on the vaults, with figures and plant decorations, set a fashion.
The octagonal hall has a dome that, according to Suetonius, rotated day and night: but it is not certain it was this one. A recent discovery is the Hall of the Sphinx, brought to light in 2019: a vaulted room 4.5 meters high, with frescoes of the god Pan, panthers and sphinxes, buried for almost two thousand years.
At the entrance to the villa, on the Velia, stood a colossal statue of Nero as the sun god, about 35 meters tall, with a crown of seven rays: from it the nearby Colosseum took its name. The portico around the lake, according to Suetonius, had three rows of columns and measured a mile.
The Romans loathed this palace, made with goods seized from citizens and statues taken from temples, even at Delphi. After Nero's death, in 68, his successors stripped it and built over it. Martial complained that a single house took up an entire city.
Vespasian drained the lake to build the Flavian Amphitheater there. After a fire in 104, the Baths of Trajan, inaugurated in 109, were built over the Oppian pavilion. Paradoxically this was its salvation: the earth protected the frescoes from humidity.
At the end of the 1400s a boy fell into a hole on the Oppian Hill and found himself in a cave covered with painted figures. Soon artists had themselves lowered in on ropes: Pinturicchio, Raphael and Michelangelo discovered ancient painting this way, and those decorations took the name of grotesques.
Don't miss
• The grotesques.
• The octagonal hall.
• The Hall of the Sphinx.
• The artists' signatures.
Did you know?
• On the walls you can read the signatures of those who lowered themselves into the halls: from Domenico Ghirlandaio and Filippino Lippi to Casanova and the Marquis de Sade.
• In 1980 the surviving part entered the UNESCO list, together with the historic center of Rome.