Domus Aurea historical timeline

A palace built after a fire, buried by the men who came after, and rediscovered by Renaissance artists who climbed down into it on ropes.

Chronology

1. AD 64 — a fire destroys much of the centre of Rome, and the emperor Nero begins building a new residence.
2. After AD 64 — the palace, designed by the architects Severus and Celer and decorated by a certain Fabullus or Famulus, grows into the largest and most sumptuous of the imperial residences, from the Palatine to the Oppian and part of the Caelian, covering about one square mile.
3. After AD 64 — it takes the form of pavilions separated by gardens, woods and an artificial lake in the valley where the Colosseum now stands, with a vestibule holding the colossal statue of the emperor as the Sun God and halls enriched with statues from Greece and Asia Minor.
4. After Nero's death — his successors set out to cancel every trace of the emperor and his palace, stripping the halls of their revetments and sculpture, filling them with earth up to the vaults and using them as foundations for other buildings.
5. After Nero's death — the Thermae Traiani are built over the Domus Aurea, which is what allowed some of its rooms to be preserved to our own day; the Oppian pavilions remain unknown until the Renaissance.
6. Renaissance — after some chance discoveries, artists fascinated by antiquity — Pinturicchio, Ghirlandaio, Raphael and Giulio Romano — begin lowering themselves from above into those "grottoes", copying the decorative motifs they preserved.
7. 16th century — from where they were found, those motifs take the name grottesche, and "grotesque painting" becomes the name of a genre, widespread above all in this century, which takes up and reworks Roman wall decoration.

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