Duration:

2.5 hours

About

The Domus Aurea was part of the project that Nero had devised to convert and transform Rome into a new city "Necropolis" following the Hellenistic model in the manner of Alexandria, this is, a city with an orthogonal plane with squares and wide rectilinear streets. With this same ideology, 60 years later, Emperor Hadrian built the gigantic Villa Tiburtina 30 km from Rome.

The cave was covered with painted figures. Soon the word spread and the young Roman artists lowered themselves down inside the cave to admire the beautiful ancient frescoes. Today the frescoes are faded but were studied during the Renaissance artists such as Michelangelo and Raphael. Raphael even took inspiration from the frescoes of the Domus Aurea for the making of the Vatican Loggia. Thanks to the discovery of these paintings, the artistic term "grotesque" was created.
The construction of the Domus Aurea also known as the Golden House has been considered the most extravagant construction in the history of Rome.