After the fire of 64 AD, which destroyed much of the center of Rome, Emperor Nero had a new residence built with walls covered in precious marbles and vaults decorated with gold and precious stones, earning it the name Domus Aurea.
It was designed by the architects Severus and Celer and decorated by the painter Fabullo. The enormous complex included vast vineyards, pastures, and woods, an artificial lake, treasures looted from Eastern cities, and precious ornaments, among which was a colossal statue of the emperor dressed as the Sun god. After Nero’s death, his successors sought to bury and erase all traces of the palace.
The luxurious halls were stripped of their coverings and sculptures and filled with earth up to the vaults, and above them the great Baths of Titus and Trajan were constructed. In the valley below, the Colosseum was built. The lavish fresco and stucco decorations of the Domus Aurea remained hidden until the Renaissance. Then some artists passionate about antiquities, including Pinturicchio, Ghirlandaio, Raphael, Giovanni da Udine, and Giulio Romano, by climbing down into what they thought were caves, began to copy the decorative motifs of the vaults.
For this reason, the decorations were called “grotesques.” With the rediscovery began the problems of conserving the paintings and stuccoes, which quickly faded due to humidity and eventually were forgotten. Only after the discovery of Pompeii’s frescoes did scholars regain interest in Roman grotesques, and in 1772 excavations resumed at the Domus Aurea.
