Domus Aurea

The Domus Aurea (Latin for Golden House ) was a huge palace in Rome, the Roman emperor Nero ( AD 64 ) was on the grounds of a former palace, the Domus Transitoria, built after the fire of the city. He looked more like an estate than a palace, the entire system comprised approximately 80 ha

The walls were painted by the Roman painter Fabullus. The ceiling painting was more important than the wall painting. Small rooms and corridors are completely painted, otherwise the walls are clad or plated with marble slabs. Figure paintings are rather poorly preserved. The paintings fall into the fourth style / fantasy style of Roman wall painting.

The dining room is the first domed structure whose ground plan describes an octagon, and the earliest in the palace architecture at all.

Today, the house has serious moisture damage to the paintings and is currently closed after a few years of accessibility to the year 2000 to the public.

Suetonius on the Domus Aurea

Suetonius describes the palace in his biography of Nero:

" In the entrance hall of the house had a 120 foot high colossal statue with a portrait of Nero's court. The whole area was so great that they included three porticoes of a mile in length and an artificial lake that was almost a sea, surrounded by houses, as big as cities. Then there were villas with fields, vineyards and pastures, forests full of wild and tame animals of all kinds. Some parts of the house were completely gilded and adorned with gems and shells. In the dining rooms there were movable ceiling made ​​of ivory, thrown down by the flowers and perfume could be dispersed. The most important of them was circular, moving day and night constantly, like the earth. The baths were supplied with sea water and sulfur. When, after completion of construction Nero inaugurated the house, he was very pleased and said that he now finally live in a house that was worthy of a human being. "

To match the lines of Suetonius went to the time of Nero in Rome satires to which the Romans calling upon emigrating to the nearby public Veii, because Rome had become a single house, if not you Veii and it already belongs: Roma FIET domus: Veios migrate Quirites - si non et Veios occupat ista domus.

Location and further use

The Domus Aurea was the new palace of Nero, after the previous building, which was destroyed in a fire the year 64 before the completion of Nero in the first years of the reign begun Domus Transitoria.

The grounds of the Domus Aurea comprised approximately 100 acres of large parts of the Roman hills: On the Palatine Hill, the vestibule was erected on the Esquiline the remaining parts of the Villa of Maecenas and were included on the Caelian Hill, the temple of Claudius was converted to a nymphaeum and included in the overall complex. In the centrally situated between valley where the Colosseum now stands, a lake was created. The Romans were full of scorn for the megalomania of their ruler.

The subsequent emperors gave the Roman people parts of the Domus Aurea back. Vespasian and Titus built the Flavian Amphitheatre ( Coliseum). In the year 80, the Baths of Titus were completed. After the fire, the Domus Aurea in the year 104 began with the building, which opened in 109 Trajan. The Palatine remained what it was since the time of Emperor Augustus, Palace complex.

Today, a small remnant of the once vast complex is only on the Oppius, a hill on the edge of the Esquiline obtained. Due to its architecture and its stucco and mural decoration it comes to great art -historical significance, but it gives a completely different impression than the original construction. While this corresponded to the type of a spacious view villa which today remains have become windowless basement because the area was populated by Nero, to serve as a substructure for Titus and Trajan.

In their work, the restorers discovered at the same time an underground passage that leads to the nearby Colosseum. According to newspaper reports, the experts consider to extend this tunnel and use it as a new starting of the Domus Aurea.

Nero had to envisage the ceiling and the upper halves of the walls. Of these frescoes still exist today around 30,000 m², of whom 1200 are restored. The image themes are mythological scenes, a still life with ham, bread and fish, landscapes and decorative grotesques.

In some places the wall signatures of famous Renaissance painter are enrolled. The Imperial Palace had just been rediscovered; the artists had to rappel down through ceiling openings into the underground to copy frescoes there. What they saw, they used for their own work - such as the semicircular canals of the Vatican, which were founded by Raphael's supervision.

Current Situation

After the building after extensive, decades-long restoration works had been made ​​available only since 1999 in parts of the public again, it had to end of 2005 to be re- locked after severe damage had been found through out the ground in the construction moisture.

After a year, re- renovating the house late January 2007, was reopened. On the morning of March 30, 2010 a vaulted passageway rushed from the time of Trajan an after persistent rains, after which the Domus Aurea was closed to visitors. Currently ( spring 2012 ) will take place between urban and state agencies instead of a discussion in which form a restoration and subsequent presentation could be held for the public.

Dome

One of the dining rooms of the Domus Aurea is the first dome, which was built on an octagonal floor plan, and the earliest in the palace architecture. The monastery vault had an inscribed circle diameter of 13.48 m and was broken by a 5.99 m wide oculus. The dome shell consisted of Opus caementitium.