View Article: Visiting the Domus Aurea

	Visiting the Domus Aurea
	written by Lesley Everett / 07.12.2004

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Location

Our class took a guided tour of Domus Aurea, otherwise known as Nero's Golden House.

Connection to Research

Actually visiting Domus Aurea was not much different than I had expected it to be, but I did have trouble imagining the palace and rooms decorated elaborately with open doors to the outside gardens and sunlight. Everything inside was so dark and had been stripped down to the bricks and dirt- I think I was disappointed that the remains weren't more elaborate and beautiful. I was also surprised by how maze-like the rooms and corridors were. Luckily our tourguide carried a map of the entire palace with her and was very good about showing us where we were and pointing out the important architectural and design features of each area. She was quite knowledgeable about the changes and or destruction of the palace made by the emperors who followed Nero, too, and she explained how the holes in the ceilings and floors were added to make the Roman baths as well as why many rooms were filled in with rubble to support the newer buildings above the palace. These features were especially interesting to learn about because I hadn't found any descriptions of them in my previous research.

Element of Interest

Octagonal Room in Domus Aurea

My favorite room in the palace was the octagonal room, a large and airy gallery used for social gatherings and art displays. It's in the shape of a large octagon with arched doorways along each side wall that led into smaller chamber rooms or into the former gardens. These doorways were most likely covered in draperies and surrounded by marble. The side chambers were lit by hidden sky lights which created a mysterious dark and light effect surrounding the octagon room. At the side of the octagon opposite the open view to the gardens, a large fountain with cascading water was built. Historians believe the entire floor of the octagon room was covered in wood and that all of Nero's most prized artworks and masterpieces were displayed there. Spanning over the entire room is a large cement and brick dome with a round sunlight at the apex that illuminates the area. It's like a private, mini-version of the Pantheon! I was most intrigued by this room because of its scale and obvious grandeur. Even though its gold and marble are long gone, this room was the most easy for me to envision back in its original glory and splendor.

Questions

Frescoes in Domus Aurea

This past spring as I was researching Domus Aurea, one of my main questions was: "At what point did the Romans and the emperors decide to stop destroying Nero's palace and instead preserve it? What caused this change, and was it too late?"

The tour of the palace and the reading I've done about its history have helped me realize that the emperors and Romans who succeeded Nero never intended to save or preserve Domus Aurea at all. After Nero's suicide, the palace was used for about a year by two more rulers, but then it was gradually destroyed or buried by a long procession of emperors. The Flavians drained the lake and built the Colosseum to provide a place for gladiatorial events, after which Trajan built Rome's first great bath complex directly over the palace. Many of the rooms had to be filled in with rubble to provide structural support and others were cut through and altered in order to build the water pipes. There's curently a park and modern buildings over the palace now. All in all, there was never any historical effort to preserve or renovate Doums Aurea. It was opened only recently for public tours and restorations of the remaining frescoes are currently underway.

Image Analysis

Map of the palace

This is a map of the rooms and corridors of Nero's Golden Palace. It does a good job of showing the tremendous size and expansiveness of the palace as well as the maze-like layout of the rooms (we must keep in mind that this was only one very small part of the whole palace- there were hundreds of rooms spread out over 200 acres). The west wing is apparently based on rectangular rooms and was once thought to have been Nero's residence, but the east wing is more complex and might have been used for entertaining. This image shows the central layout and main courtyard of the palace well, but it's not immediately clear that all the southern walls were actually open and looked out onto the gardens and lakes. Also, there's no way of knowing that the palace was not completed by looking at this map and that another wing should have been added according to Nero's plans. The newer additions and structuring walls added by later emperors are not shown, either, so this is not a totally accurate picture of the rooms as they exist now.

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