Domus Aurea

When the Emperor Nero built his Domus Aurea, or Golden House in 64 AD, Rome had recently undergone a great blaze that wiped out villas and houses on the Caelian Hill.  Rumour had it that the fire had been deliberately started (hence “Nero ..fiddled while Rome burned”) although today this is disputed by historians.   Whatever did enable Nero to reclaim large tracts of land in the centre of Rome – the Domus Aurea covered some 100 acres – he built a lavish colonnaded structure, with mosaic ceilings inlaid with precious stones, rooms faced with marble and wonderful frescoes.  There was, according to scholars of the day, an ingenious dining room open to the sky, with a revolving fretwork ceiling that rained rose petals and perfumes down on the guests.  Formal gardens and parks spread as far as the Palatine Hill. A huge bronze statue of Nero, over 100 feet high, stood at the entrance to the Domus Aurea, representing the emperor as a sun god.

The entrance to the Domus Aurea today

Nero committed suicide just four years later in 68 AD, after the Senate declared him a public enemy.  He was 30 years old.  What followed was the Damnatio memoriae, a complete eradication of Nero’s works.  The Domus Aurea was stripped of its treasures,  it was filled with earth and the public baths, the Baths of Titus, were built over the villa.  The pleasure lake of the Domus became the site of the Colosseum.

The Domus Aurea remained buried until the 15^th century, when a young Roman fell through the earth into an underground grotto filled with wonderful frescoes.   Soon the renaissance artists were letting themselves down on ropes into these underground caves to study the paintings and later, copy the techniques.  This style of painting had never been seen before and was reproduced in palaces and churches such as Rome’s Villa Farnesina and the Vatican by famous artists of the day, including Raphael. 

18th Century work using the technique. French Academy, Rome

The damp earth continued to seep into the Domus Aurea, limiting access.  Within the last 20 years, it has been mostly closed due to subsidence and flooding.  In 2010, a huge chunk of the ceiling in the complex collapsed.  The Roman authorities began to work on the site, fearing further and irretrievable damage.

It has therefore been nigh-on impossible to visit Nero’s Golden House.  Year after year on visits to Rome it has remained closed.  Earlier this year it was open for a very short period.  However, amazingly, here it May it is again open for weekend visits, restricted to small numbers, and only on application.  There are two tours in English per week.

I'm still pinching myself that I was lucky enough to get the last ticket for a tour yesterday afternoon.  At 3pm I queued along with my fellow visitors, hardhats in hand (the site is still undergoing extensive restoration) waiting for our guide, one of the archeologists at the Domus Aurea to lead us through the complex.

Beginning our tour

We began in one wing of the palace, and our guide explained that we would need to discern the original structure of Nero’s house from later additions under the Emperor Trajan.  At first, as we headed down the scaffolded corridors we saw little of the Golden House but as we walked further towards the centre we began to see frescoed rooms, some soaring upwards of 30 feet, and traces of mosaics on the ceilings.  At one point we stopped to admire a mosaic floor, uncovered only two weeks previously.

Mosaic floor, newly discovered

 

The frescoed ceiling.  The holes were made by the artists in the
15th century to gain access from above.

The long curved gallery, once open to the pleasure gardens

One of the better preserved rooms, frescoes still colourful

 

We reached the famous octagonal dining room with its giant oculus letting in light from above (today's ground level).  This was the location of the dining room and the revolving ceiling.  Beyond one of the eight entrances to the room lies a ramped structure, believed to be an artificial waterfall.  It must have been incredible to sit and dine in this space, with the sound of water tricking down, looking out towards the Palatine Hill.

The octagonal dining room

But everywhere the damp is oozing in.  It was hot yesterday – too hot for long sleeves – but in the Domus it was cold.  The water dripped steadily down from the ceilings, and the frescoes, faded but still discernable, were covered in bright green mould.  There was a real sense of the park above us, the Colle Oppio, breaking into the structure with its trees sending down their roots, and the damp earth above bearing down on the shell of the Domus.  The structure is incredibly strong, with beautifully constructed arches and colonnades, but it’s fighting with the elements above it.

Water runs off a frescoed arch

 

Heading along the ramps, shiny from the damp

The archeologists have hatched a plan to slowly replace the soil on the Colle Oppio with lighter materials, including crushed clay pebbles, and to remove some of the heavier trees and vegetation to enable the Domus Aurea to breathe again.  It seems a massive undertaking.  But they plan to restore the rooms to their original glory and bring some of the frescoes to life again.