This volume illustrates one of the largest and most important buildings on the Palatine and the first of the imperial palaces to be planned as a whole unit. Analytical academic essays and summaries are accompanied by numerous photographs.
This volume illustrates one of the largest and most important buildings on the Palatine and the first of the imperial palaces to be planned as a whole unit. Although the ruins of the palace are extremely impressive, especially on the side overlooking the Forum, where a series of arches rise one above the other to a height of roughly 20 metres, what we see today is merely the underlying supporting structure of the palace, covered in the mid-sixteenth century by the Farnesi Gardens. Analytical academic essays and summaries are accompanied by numerous photographs illustrating the various stages of the dig together with detailed diagrams and superb three-dimensional reconstructions of the sites, architecture and landscapes of ancient Rome. The results presented here by a team of academics has hugely increased our knowledge of this luxurious complex, previously little-known, and from many points of view absolutely revolutionary, together with the topography and the architectural history of the Palatine hill, including the area towards the Velabrium. The book also provides an exhaustive overview, complete with documentation, graphics and photographs, of the new finds made during the excavation of the site. These are both important and often surprising, as could be seen in the recent exhibition on Nero, with details on restoration work and consolidation which modified a large part of the slopes of the Hill in order to stabilize it. The last theme deals with the newly-recovered exhibition spaces, the areas which have been prepared along the Via Nova with the aim of reopening the Domus Tiberiana to the public and transforming it into a living museum.