This is more an illustrated podcast (or a narrated selection of photographs) because there were just too many good images to choose from.

In his life of Nero Suetonius tells us:

“There was nothing however in which [Nero] was more ruinously prodigal than in building. He made a palace extending all the way from the Palatine to the Esquiline, which at first he called the House of Passage [Domus Transitoria], but when it was burned shortly after its completion and rebuilt, the Golden House [Domus Aurea].”

The vast palace complex of the Domus Aurea was the work, according to Pliny, of the architects Severus and Celer and made use of land cleared by the great fire of 64 CE (the one in which Nero is said to have fiddled while Rome burned). It occupied all or part of three of the seven hills of Rome.

Trajan subsequently obliterated all memory of Nero, and used the pavilion on the Colle Oppio as ready-made foundations for his new public bath complex.

In the late fifteenth century artists began to explore the “grottoes” below the Baths of Trajan, and emulate the decorations they found. The results can be found all over Italy, but also from Mexico to London and most places in between.

To visit the Domus Aurea one joins an internally organised tour. Presently open Fri-Sun, information and booking here.

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