In the time that remains. [COUGH] I want to return, I want to turn to Nero's most important architectural commission. And I can't over-emphasize the significance of this structure that I'm going to show you now. The so-called Domus Aurea or the Golden House of Nero. Again because of its gilded façade. We've already talked about the fire that raged through Rome in 64. And when that when that fire, when the smoke from that fire died down, that Nero expropriated 300 to 350 acres in prime downtown Rome, for his own use, for a private palace, the so-called Golden House. We see a site plan here, also from Ward-Perkins where you can get a sense not only of the extent of this. Look how it, it it, it covers ground from the Circus Maximus all the way across to the Esquiline hill as you can see so well here. So the Palatine hill, the Esquiline hill, and also even the Caelian hill over here. He dug an artificial, he had his architects dig an artificial lake in the center of this as you can see here. And the Golden House was very extensive. There's only one part of it that remains today under the, or as part of the Esquiline Hill in Rome, and we therefore call it the Esquiline wing [COUGH] of the Domus Aurea of Nero. This palace had incredible set of gimmicks. Gimmicks that were so noteworthy that the names of the architects that come down towards the architect and engineer who are responsible for this, and I think it is largely they came down to us largely because of these incredible gimmicks that they created for this structure. Their names were Severus and Celer, Severus and Celer. And I believe I have put their names on the monument list for you, yes I have, underneath the plan of the Esquiline wing. So Severus and Celer, their names suggest to us that they were Roman architects, in fact. And these gimmicks included a 125 ft statue of Nero himself. A colossal statue or the colossus, as it is designated here. A colossal statue of Nero with the feature, Nero, Nero assimilated to the sun go Sol Sol, the sun god Sol. And it was done in bronze and it was done by a famous artist whose name we also know, Zenodorus. I've also put his name on the monument list for you. Zenodorus, who was a very famous bronze caster. So Zenodorus' colossus the gilded facade. And what were some of the gimmicks that Severus and Celer added to this palace? When you, when you ate in the dining hall, if you were invited as a special guest to eat with Nero, while you were eating the coffered ceilings of one of the dining rooms would drop on you all kinds of wonderful frag-, fragrances and flower petals while you ate. There was also a bath that gave you a choice of of, of pla-, of, of seawater and a saltwater, and water from the sulfurous springs of Tivoli. You had your choice, if you were bathing at Nero's Domus Aurea. And, most spectacularly of all, and I think what Severus and Celer had particular fame for, was they created a banqueting room that had a revolving ceiling, supposedly. A ceiling that revolved with the heavenly bodies. So, an incredible array of of gimmicks as I said before in this extraordinary palace but all of them clearly possible a vis-a-vis architecture at this time. I'm showing you here a plan of the Esquiline wings. This is the one part of the palace that survives today. We'll talk about what happened to this palace in a later lecture. But you can see it here dozens and dozens of rooms around a five sided court as you can see, at this location. And then here, what is up to this, what is, what is the so-called octagonal room of Nero's Domus Aurea? Which is a remarkable room. And I think it's fair to say, the single most important room that I will have shown you thus far this semester is the octagonal room of Nero's Domus Aurea. And you see it here. You see the plan of the octagon and then the radiating spaces out from it. I'll return to that plan in just a moment. [COUGH] Just to mention, though, by using Google Earth again I can show you the particular location of the dome of the Esquiline wing on the pal-, on the Esquiline hill today. What happened to it eventually, and again I'm not going to go into the details now, but I will in the future. The t-, after Nero's damnatio memoriae some of this was destroyed. Much of it was incorporated into later buildings. Eventually a bath of the emperor Trajan ended up on this site. And the emperor covered over what was remained of Nero's Domus Aurea, what hadn't been razed to the ground, and incorporated some of it into his later bath. And in fact this hemicycle of Trajan's bath is actually the entranceway today of the Dome Aurea. You can see it right here. And you can see that the other remains are of both Trajan's baths and of the Dome Aurea have been incorporated into a modern garden. A very attractive garden. Where you can wonder and see some of the remains of both. And actually what you see here, it just shows you how amazing Google Earth is. This circle that you see here is actually, it has a grate on top today, but it was actually the Oculus of Nero's octagonal room. Which is down below, which is located underground. So if you visit the Domus Aurea which is as you can see right near the Colosseum. You go into the entrance way through the hemicycle of Trajan's later baths, and you find yourself in a series of corridors. We've talked about these corridors before, because we talked about the paintings that Fabullus did, for Nero's Domus Aurea. First the third style paintings and then the fourth style paintings. And you'll remember that the Domus Aurea was described as fabullus' as prison because there were so many rooms and corridors that it would take a whole lifetime to paint them. And you see some of those here. Barrel-vaulted corridors stuccoed over and then painted in the third and fourth styles. Another gimmick that you see through out the the Domus Aurea are a series of bridges that are built to carry water from one part of the palace to another. Another view here showing one of the corridors. And what you see here [COUGH] something we have not discussed yet but is the wave of the future and that is concrete faced with brick. After the fire there was realization, the fire of 64, there was realization that stone burned too easily, it was not an effective facing any longer and that they needed to come up with something else. Brick was, worked better with fire. So the decision was taken to move and this is not the tile brick in Pompeii, this is real brick. And the decision was taken to begin to use brick face construction for these buildings. At this time it was stuccoed over as you can see here. Stucco and then painted on top. So you wouldn't have actually seen the brick in antiquity, but we'll see it was not long until the Romans recognized that brick was a very attractive material in its own right and began to leave it exposed, but we're not there yet. The paintings, the fourth style paintings, the fabullus. You'll remember this one that we've already looked at with the reintroduction of architectural fragments and the architectural cages in the Domus Aurea. [COUGH] This is the single, as I've already said, the single most remarkable and important room that I've shown you thus far this semester. The octagonal room, in Nero's Domus Aurea. You see this, a cross section plan and axonometric view from Ward-Perkins here, and you can get a very good sense of this. This is truly an octagonal room. The experiment in the domed room where they had inscribed a circle into an octagon, gave them the idea that they were going to try to make an actual octagonal room out of concrete and they succeed here. You can see the eight sides of this room. You can see it has a series of radiating alcoves but much bigger alcoves than we saw in the frigidaria at Pompeii or in the thermal bath at Baia. And differently shaped ones. And not, you know, all the same but one, couple are cross shaped and others are rectangular. Different shapes, and then the axonometric view shows you that within those alcoves there are additional niches in some of the walls that gives a more of a sculptural quality to this than has been the case before. And this again was no small feat, on the part of these architects. Why is the Domus Aurea so important? The reason the, excuse me the octagonal room of the Domus Aurea so important. The octagonal room of the Domus Aurea, and I've given you a number of bullet points here, represents a break from the tyranny of the rectangle. The tyranny of the rectangle that we know from Greek and Etruscan architecture. It enables vistas to be created in every direction and we know the importance to Romans of vistas and panoramas. It creates one continuous envelope around an interior space. It fully realizes, this development has been long in coming, but we're finally there. It fully realizes the technical and expressive potentiality of Roman concrete construction. It represents a switch of emphasis from solids to voids. From walls and roofs that we saw in such buildings in the Temple of Portunus, to the insubstantial space that they enclose and shape. It is the interior space, not the walls, that matter now. And in this new interior architecture, light plays a key role. Natural light that creates drama as well as illuminate. The importance of the octagonal room of Nero's Domus Aurea can not be overstated, exclamation point, exclamation point, exclamation point. The octagonal room, heralds the Roman architectural revolution that we saw already beginning in places like Palestrina. But it is finally here in its full-blown form where, as I said, the potentiality of the expressiveness of Rome in concrete is fully realized. This is the room itself as it looks today. We can see the octagon, we can see the dome. We can see the way in which the octagon becomes the dome, the eight sides and the way it is shaped to become the dome above. We can see some of the niches here. We can see the way in which the, the spaces that expand from the central space, and we can see niches within those, to give greater sculptural quality to it. And you can get a little bit of the sense of the light here. It, this would have been elaborately decorated in antiquity. I show a restored view. All of those same marbles, from Egypt, from Africa, from from Asia Minor, from Greece, all brought together here, lots of different colors. This is what those Pompeians wished their walls actually look like. But you see real marble riveted walls, marble pavements. And then up above it, all kinds of colors, and then up above, the ceiling's stuccoed over and also painted. One can only imagine Nero entering into this octagonal room, and how he must have felt. And, in fact, we have a quote from Nero. In which he says that when the Domus Aurea in Rome was finished, or he's reported to have said when the Domus Aurea in Rome was finished, was reported to have said, and I quote, at last, at last I, I, I am going to be able to be housed like a human being. That was the way Nero though about this. He achieved his goal undoubtedly. At least for a short period of time before before he died in 68. And I believe and I'm sure you agree with me, I believe that it is for the Domus Aurea especially for the octagonal room of the Domus Aurea that Nero would have liked to be remembered and indeed he achieved his goal. Thank you.
