Domus Aurea

Domus Aurea lies beneath Rome as the surviving section of Emperor Nero’s vast Golden House. You move through underground rooms that once formed part of a landscape of pavilions, gardens, woods, fountains, and an artificial lake spread across several hills.

Construction began after the great fire of 64 AD, expanding Nero’s earlier Domus Transitoria into an imperial setting for banquets, ceremonies, and display. An octagonal hall played with geometry and light, while a colossal statue showed Nero as the sun god. Marble, ivory, gold leaf, mosaics, and frescoes covered the interiors, with mythological figures including Achilles, Ulysses, Hector, and Andromache. After Nero’s death in 68 AD, later emperors removed valuable materials, filled rooms with earth, and built the Colosseum and Baths of Trajan above parts of the complex. That burial protected many paintings until their rediscovery during the Renaissance, when artists such as Raphael studied the underground chambers and helped inspire grotesque decoration.

The strongest impression comes from the contrast between ambition and survival: a palace designed for light, water, and spectacle now preserves faded figures in quiet darkness.