Palatine Hill Site Features

The Farnese Gardens

Laid out by the Farnese family from the sixteenth century over the Domus Tiberiana and still partially preserved — among the earliest botanical gardens in Europe. The terrace is the single best viewpoint on the hill: the whole Roman Forum, end to end, from above.

The Domus Flavia and Domus Augustana

The ceremonial and private halves of Domitian's palace, at the top of the hill, separated by the building that now holds the museum.

The substructures over the Domus Aurea

Nero's vast palace, completed by A.D. 69 after the Great Fire destroyed the Domus Transitoria, survives here as the ground Domitian built on.

The Iron Age huts

Excavated in 1907 and again in 1948, dated between the ninth and seventh centuries BC and thought to have been used for funerary purposes — the physical remains closest in date to the founding of the city.

The Palatine Museum

Installed in the surviving part of the Villa Mattei — a sixteenth-century villa turned neo-Gothic by a Scot around 1830, turned convent at the end of the nineteenth century, and partially demolished from 1928 to let the excavation proceed.

The House of Augustus and the Palatine House

The latter announced in 2006 and believed to be the emperor's birthplace, apparently spared the overbuilding that erased the other Republican houses after the fire of A.D. 64.