Nero’s palace to be reopened to visitor’s soon

One of Rome’s prime tourist attractions, the ruins of Nero’s Domus Aurea, is set to be reopened to the public sooner than expected. Next spring, visitors will be allowed in to the fabled “Golden House” while it is undergoing repairs to its leaky
and flaking walls and ceilings.

The Domus was closed in December because of urgent safety concerns, and was expected to remain shut for two years. But now, Bottini says, culture lovers will be allowed back in after the roof is water-proofed. Works will also involve the removal of the gardens over it and the possible closure to traffic of the Viale Oppio. It is intended that, once the project is under way, visitors will be allowed access to the monument to see the works in progress. “Once the roof is safe from leaking water people can come back in. They’ll be able to see the repair work for themselves. We’re thinking of putting up a special visitors’ route amid the scaffolding,” Bottini said.

Bottini added that the project will enable experts to unearth more of the massive baths that Emperor Trajan built over the Domus, “allowing visitors to see how the whole complex fits together.” When the palace was completed in AD 64, it was a 50-hectare complex covering most of the Palatine, Celian, and Oppian hills. On entering the Domus for the first time Nero is believed to have said that at last he could live like a human being.

Some 2.5 million euros were spent in refurbishing the 30-odd visitable rooms filled with surprisingly fresh and lively frescoes of weird animals like winged lions, griffins and tritons which led to the original coinage of the word “grotesque,” from the Italian word for cave or grotto. Many of the frescoes illustrate the emperor’s taste for the exotic in scenes from Homeric myth.

Other interesting touches are the chalk and tallow marks left by Renaissance masters like Raphael who were let down through a hole in the roof to admire its splendors.  Architecturally, the piece de resistance is the eight-sided Sala Ottagonale where Nero is supposed to have entertained his guests with his singing and lyre playing, all on a rotating floor. At suitable moments in the fun, the sybaritic emperor is also reported – by Roman historian Suetonius – to have given the signal for marble panels to slide back, showering guests with petals and perfume.

After Nero’s suicide in AD 68, the Flavian emperors who succeeded him proceeded to bury all trace of the man who already in life was a byword for dissolution, cruelty, and excess. The Flavian amphitheater, better known as the Colosseum, was built on the site of Nero’s palace-side lake, while Trajan built his baths on top of the main part of the sprawling pleasure dome, located mainly on Rome’s Colle Oppio (Oppian Hill).

Ironically, the Colosseum is so-called because of the massive statue of Nero that his successors dragged beside their own monument – after changing the head, according to some ancient accounts. Another irony is that, by burying the place, they actually preserved it so that the finest wall paintings outside Pompeii, with almost equally vivid colors, can be admired today.

 Courtesy of: www.zoomata.com