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Typology: Monuments

Address

Address: Via di San Gregorio, 30
Zone: Rione Celio (Terme di Caracalla) (Roma centro)

Contacts

Telephone: 06 39967700 Coopculture (tutti i giorni dalle 9 alle 17)

Information

Modalità di partecipazione: Booking required

Description

The House of Augustus is the emblematic monument of the hill, to which few others can be compared in terms of historical importance and archaeological interest, and in which the highest artistic expressions of painting can be found. In the last two years, the work of the Special Superintendency for Archaeological Heritage of Rome has focused mainly on the peristyle (columned porticoed garden) of the first phase of the House of Augustus (when he was not yet emperor), on the northern and eastern sides of which are the most representative rooms of the house.
A route through the peristyle itself opens up the area of the house that is remarkable for the high quality of its pictorial decoration. In addition to the so-called Emperor's study, a precious testimony to the refined decorative taste of Augustus, the "lower cubicle", the large oecus (living room and reception room) and the rooms known as the ramp and antiramp have been restored to their original appearance and are visible to scholars and the public for the first time. Their splendid decorations, milestones in the history of Roman painting, make the first emperor's house the largest pictorial complex in the Second Style.

Restoration of the pictorial decoration
The rooms that can be visited were brought to light during excavations carried out in the Augustan area by Professor Gianfilippo Carettoni at the end of the 1970s. Decorated with frescoes and stuccoes, they are an important example of Roman painting from the end of the first century BC and the result of a demanding restoration project that involved the large oecus, the ramp room and two superimposed cubicles.
The restoration of the rooms, therefore, required work on the surfaces and above all the recomposition of the fragments, through which the decorative layout of this wing of the House of Augustus was restored, as it was at the time of the Emperor.

The House of Augustus on the Palatine is not only a place of great historical significance, but also one of the most refined and elegant examples of the paintings that decorated the rooms of patrician homes. The rooms that can be visited today are preceded by a room covered by a barrel vault and occupied by a ramp: although it was a passageway, the vault is decorated with frescoes reproducing a coffered motif, while the walls have decorations inspired by geometric elements. The two small rooms next to the ramp were probably reserved for guests, while the last room, on the upper floor, was for the emperor's private and exclusive use. The frescoes date the rooms to the middle period of the Second Style, between the end of the 1st century B.C. and the beginning of the 1st century A.D.: one can clearly perceive the search for a more archaic and severe style in the reception rooms, where guests were entertained and received, while the style is characterised by fantastic themes and airy atmospheres, underlined by the soft and bright colours, in the emperor's private study.

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Culture and leisure › Cultural heritage › Archaeological heritage
Last checked: 2023-02-23 14:30