Dear Gentle Readers,

This is our maiden voyage on our blog to keep you updated about our trip to Rome. Guided by the faculty—see our mugs in hardhats below—the students are the authors of most of these blogposts. This first one was made by us, the faculty, who arrived in Rome a few days early to prepare for the onslaught of students.

We were fortunate to get a chance to get in on the Domus Aurea (Golden House) tour. Prof. Smith remembered it from his student days (um, let's just say it was in the nineties, probably the early 90s), but it had been closed for several years. Just as way back when, we were forced to don hardhats in case a stray bit of concrete or plaster suddenly broke loose and hit us on our noggins. It's been so cold here (well below freezing, even during the day) that the chance of some incident was higher than normal. But here's what you've been waiting for:

Sue Curry looking entirely excited about the Domus Aurea!

Prof. Smith looking jet-lagged. And cold. Oh, so very cold.

As the students all know, the Domus Aurea was the emperor Nero's (54–68 AD) great building project after the great fire of Rome (64 AD). The project was massive; folks in Rome said that he was making all of Rome his private villa. And it's kind of true. Look at the massiveness of this complex:

The Golden House of Nero. The complex would have occupied over 30% of the land inside the Servian Walls. Yikes.

The giant pool in the middle was quickly replaced with none other than the Colosseum, and the other parts were quickly repurposed or buried by subsequent emperors. We visited the are so-called "Esquiline Wing," the golden strip of buildings at the bottom right, which was covered over between 104–109, by the emperor Trajan, who placed his giant bath complex on top of this part of the Domus Aurea. Here's an overview of the floor plan, with the black lines showing Nero's Domus Aurea, and the red showing the substructure for Trajan's baths. 

The Esquiline Wing of the Domus Aurea. Note that the substructure for the Baths of Trajan had a different orientation.

This particular wing of the Golden House would have faced south and looked out over the giant pool that Nero had created as part of his complex. If you look closely at the plan above, you can see that most of the rooms did not have a solid wall, but lots of windows and open entryways so that people could look out over the "natural world." Most famous of all the rooms is the Octagonal Room (on the right with the five supplemental rooms radiating out of it. Here, the walls form a dome-like ceiling with a skylight (or "oculus" ["eye"]) that resembles that of the Pantheon—though it predates that building by some 60 years). Of course, the Octagonal room is not a true dome, but each side of the octagon act independently until they meet at the oculus. Here is a panned out picture:

The Octagonal Room (wide view)

In this room, we think, Nero or his associates would have entertained diners (important people, ambassadors from other nations, friends) in this innovative architectural space. And that is exactly what it is, space. Freed from the shackles of support such as columns or walls, dome-like spaces are roomy and open. The skylight lets in light from above (as do the other radiating rooms, which have clerestory lighting), and wall in front of the picture-taker would have been open and looked out over the pool, letting in more light. Behind the picture-taker above was a radiating room that functioned as a fountain (see next picture). 

Down this slope would trickle gurgling water, which added sound to the impressive space and lighting.

Behind the Octagonal room was a Cryptoporticus (covered passageway at top of plan above), and in part of this, you can see the archway that ran through it that carried the aqueduct spur that fed water to this fountain:

The Cryptoporticus with arch cutting through and carrying water to the fountain above. 

This Cryptoporticus is also cool because of how it got lighting into the Golden House main areas to the south. You can't see it too well from the picture above, but on the left hand side of the picture at the TOP of the passage were light wells, which fed down to the light wells in the MIDDLE of the wall on the right hand side. This allowed light to reach into the main areas of the house. Really cool stuff. 

Finally, we cannot mention the Golden House's amazing wall paintings and stucco work. Here is a good example of the panel painting that has mythological content (Achilles being discovered among the maidens on Scyros):

Achilles being tricked into revealing his identity on Scyros. Photo taken from http://www.fotosar.it.

There are other great decorations as well. Here is a painted stucco relief of Odysseus giving the Cyclops Polyphemus the wine to get him drunk (so he can poke out his eye):

Our picture in bad lighting.

The really cool thing about this relief is that it was set on the ceiling that was covered in pumice stone and seashells, which was in vogue at the time. The effect of that was to give the room the feel of being a natural cave. And where did the Cyclops episode take place in book 9 of the Odyssey? Yep, in a cave. Clever, those Neronian decorators.

Finally, some cool shots of wall paintings:

We hope you come back to join us again later, when the students start putting up their blog posts!