What remains of Nero ‘s palace preserves in grandiloquent architecture the secret wonders of Roman painting, rediscovered in the Renaissance and destined to fascinate today’s visitor, thanks also to the virtual reconstructions of the rooms.
The emperor Nero after the devastating fire of 64 AD, which destroyed much of the center of Rome, began the construction of a new residence, which for splendor and grandeur went down in history with the name of Domus Aurea.
Designed by the architects Severus and Celer and decorated by the painter Fabullus, the palace consisted of a series of buildings separated by gardens, woods and vineyards and an artificial lake, located in the valley where the Colosseum stands today. The main nuclei of the palace were located on the Palatine Hill and on the Oppian Hill and were famous for the sumptuous decoration in which gold and precious stone coatings were added to stuccoes, paintings and colored marbles. The huge complex included, among other things, baths with normal and sulphurous water, several banquet halls, including the famous coenatio rotunda, which rotated on itself, and a huge vestibule that housed the colossal statue of the emperor in his robes. of the sun god.
After Nero’s death, his successors wanted to erase all traces of the emperor and his palace. The luxurious rooms were deprived of coatings and sculptures and filled with earth up to the vaults to be used as substructures for other buildings.