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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 April 2016
‘As has so often happened in the history of architecture, it was the advent of new materials and new methods that stimulated and shaped the new theoretical approach.’ J. B. Ward-Perkins, 1970
‘We aim to create a clear, organic architecture whose inner logic will be radiant and naked, unencumbered by lying faces and trickery.’ W. Gropius, 1923
Few discoveries have made more impact on the history of Roman architecture than that of the octagonal hall of Nero’s Golden House (begun c. A.D. 64), which was found early this century buried within the sub-structures of the Baths of Trajan on the slopes of Rome’s Oppian Hill (Figs 1 and 2). The hall, a large-scale domed rotunda fashioned from brick and concrete, has swiftly assumed the privileged position as the embodiment of a fundamental breakthrough in design and aesthetics. For many it represents an abandonment of rectilinear planning and post-and-lintel construction in favour of a much less inhibited handling of interior space, which was made possible by recent advances in brick and moulded concrete construction. So unexpected is the design that it has been declared a ‘revolution’ in architecture. Indeed, the supposedly advanced planning of the octagon and the chambers around it has been contrasted with the more conventional layout of other parts of the surviving wing of Nero’s Golden House in an attempt to show just how sudden the pace of change may have been.
1 For the discovery of the hall, see Nuova Antologia for 16 June 1914, pp. 655-61.
2 Ward-Perkins, J. B., ‘Nero’s Golden House’, Antiquity XXX (1956), pp. 217–19 Google Scholar; Ward-Perkins, , Roman Imperial Architecture, 2nd edn (Harmondsworth 1981), pp. 100–01 Google Scholar; MacDonald, W. L., The Architecture of the Roman Empire, 2nd edn (New Haven and London, 1982), pp. 38–46 Google Scholar; McKay, A. G., Houses, Villas and Palaces in the Roman World (London, 1975), pp. 130–31 Google Scholar; Sear, F. B., Roman Architecture (London, 1982), pp. 101–02 Google Scholar.
3 Warden, P. G. Cf., ‘The Domus Aurea Reconsidered’, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, XL (1981), pp. 271–78 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
4 MacDonald, op. cit. (n. 2), p. 38.
5 Giovannoni, G., ‘La cupola della Domus Aurea Neroiana in Roma’, Atti del I Congresso Nazionale di Storia dell’ Architettura (1938), pp. 3–6 Google Scholar, gives the diameter as 14.68 m; MacDonald, op. cit. (n. 2), p. 292, gives it as 14.70 m. The Roman foot is here taken to measure 0.296 m.
6 I am very grateful to Mark Wilson Jones for supplying me with this example.
7 MacDonald, op. cit. (n. 2), p. 202, gives the height up to the springing, of the concrete dome as 5.10m (= 17.2 ft), and the total height of the hall as 9.60 m (32.4 ft).
8 Giovannoni, op. cit. (n. 5), gives the height as 4.50 m (= 15.2 ft).
9 The standardization of column sizes has been investigated by Jones, Mark Wilson and will now be discussed in ‘Designing the Corinthian Order’, Journal of Roman Archaeology, 11 (1989)Google Scholar. The principles are set out briefly in Davies, P., Hemsoll, D. and Jones, M. Wilson, ‘The Pantheon.’ triumph of Rome or triumph of compromise?’, Art History, X (1987), pp. 133–53 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Columns of the Corinthian Order are normally multiples of 12 ft in height, with their shafts multiples of 10 ft. The diameter is normally one eighth the shaft height, and so for a 12 foot column would be 1¼ ft.
10 Giovannoni, op. cit. (n. 5), gives the dimensions of two of the openings as 3.70 m (12.5 ft) and 3.84 m (13.0 ft).
11 Vergil, , Aeneid, 1, 697 Google Scholar (Dido amid royal hangings); Horace, , Odes, III, 29, 15Google Scholar; Rufus, Q. Curtius, Life of Alexander, IX, 7, 15Google Scholar; Daremberg, C. cf. and Saglio, E., Dictionnaire des Antiquités Greques et Romaines (Paris, 1875–1919), I.2, pp. 1269-82Google Scholar, s.v. Coena.
12 On the mosaic decoration see Sear, F. B., Roman Wall and Vault Mosaics (Heidelberg, 1977), p. 92 Google Scholar.
13 I am most grateful to Dottoressa Fabbrini for drawing my attention to this matter.
14 Adriani, A., Repertorio d’ Arte dell’ Egitto Greco-Romano, ser. C, I-II (Palermo 1963–66), pp. 145-46Google Scholar.
15 Joyce, H., The Decoration of Walls, Ceilings, and Floors in Italy (Rome, 1981), p. 91, fig. 96Google Scholar.
16 Cameron, C., The Baths of the Romans (London, 1772), pl. 65 Google Scholar; reproduced in Lehmann, K., ‘The dome of heaven’, Art Bulletin, XXVII (1945), pp. 1–27, fig. 28CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cameron, pl. 59; Lehmann, fig. 27. See also Cameron, pl. 60; Mirri, L. and Carletti, G., Le Antiche Camere delle Terme di Tito (Rome, 1776), pls 38 and 58Google Scholar; Ponce, N., Description des Bains de Titus (Paris, 1786), pls 37 and 57Google Scholar; and Peters, W. J. T. and Meyboom, P. G. P., ‘The roots of provincial Roman painting; results of current research in Nero’s Domus Aurea’, in Roman Provincial Wall Painting of the Western Empire, ed. Liversage, J. (Oxford, 1982), pp. 33–74 Google Scholar, pl. 2.17. The half-dome of the apse in one of the rooms off the peristyle was once decorated as an umbrella-like canopy (Mirri and Carletti, pis 8 and 9; Ponce, pis 7 and 8; Lehmann, fig. 37), while the ceiling decoration of one of the corridors was decorated as a wooden grid supporting a whole series of fabric squares (Mirri and Carletti, pl. 56; Ponce, pl. 55).
17 Horace, , Satires, II, 8, 54-56Google Scholar; Servius, , Commentary to Vergil’s Aeneid, 1, 697 Google Scholar; cf. Daremberg and Saglio, loc. cit.
18 Pliny, , Natural History, VIII, 74, 196 Google Scholar; cf. IX, 63, 137.
19 See e.g. Athenaeus, , Deipnosophistae, IV, 138BGoogle Scholar; Ester, 1, 5-7; Daremberg and Saglio cf., op. cit. (n. 11), V, pp. 671-77, s.v. Velum; Lehmann, op. cit. (n. 16), pp. 11, 22-24; Smith, E. B., The Dome, a Study in the History of Ideas (Princeton, 1950), pp. 52-54, 79-83Google Scholar; Architectural Symbolism of Imperial Rome and the Middle Ages (Princeton 1956), pp. 107-29, 145-51.
20 MacDonald, op. cit. (n. 2), p. 202, gives the diameter of the oculus as 6 m (20.3 ft). The Pantheon oculus measures 30 ft, and the internal diameter of the building measures 150 ft.
21 Lehmann, op. cit. (n. 16), p. 20, fig. 58.
22 Joyce, op. cit. (n. 15), fig. 95.
23 Fabbrini, L., ‘Domus Aurea; il piano superiore del quartiere orientale’, Atti della Pontifica Accademia Romana di Archeologia, Memorie, XIV (1982), pp. 5-24Google Scholar.
24 Prükner, H. and Stolz, S., ‘Beobachtungen im Oktogon der Domus Aurea’, Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Römische Abteilung, LXXXI (1974), pp. 323-39Google Scholar, suggest the grooves may have served as tracks for a rotating structure, and propose some sort of inner dome.
25 Nero, 31, 2: praecipua cenationum rotunda quae perpetuo diebus ac noctibus vice mundi circumageretur.
26 Cf. Fabbrini, op. cit. (n. 23), p. 20. For the Boscoreale mural see also Engemann, J., Architekturdarstellungen des Frühen Zweiten Stils (Heidelberg 1967), fig. 11; pl. 33.Google Scholar A very similar second-style mural has been discovered at Oplontis, and an elaborate fourth-style version of the composition survives in the House of the Alcove, Herculaneum; for illustration see Lyttelton, M., Baroque Architecture in Classical Antiquity (London, 1974), pl. 95.Google Scholar
27 Ward-Perkins, op. cit. (n. 2), p. 169.
28 Lyttelton, op. cit. (n. 26), pp. 70–79.
29 Hemsoll, D., ‘The architecture of Nero’s Golden House’ to be published in Art and Architecture of the Roman Empire (provisional title), ed. Henig, M. Google Scholar.
30 See Jashemski, W. J., The Gardens of Pompeii, Herculaneum and the Villas Destroyed by Vesuvius (New York, 1979). pp. 92-94, 151-53Google Scholar; Rakob, F., ‘Ein Grottentriklinium in Pompeji’, Mitt. Deut. Archäol. Inst, LXXI (1964), pp. 182-94Google Scholar.
31 Carettoni, G., ‘Costruzioni sotto l’angolo sud-orientale della Domus Flavia’, Notizie degli Scavi di Antichità, III (1949), pp. 48-79Google Scholar; Ward-Perkins, op. cit. (n. 2), ill. 25; MacDonald, op. cit. (n. 2), fig. 2.
32 Plutarch, Lucullus, 39, 3.
33 Engemann, op. cit. (n. 26), fig. 4, pl. 56.
34 Engemann, op. cit. (n. 26), figs 4, 12, pls 39–43.
35 Neuerberg, N., L’Architettura delle Fontane e dei Ninfei nell’ Italia Antica (Naples, 1965), pp. 146-47Google Scholar; F. B. Sear, op. cit. (n. 12), pp. 45-47; Giuliani, C. F. and Guaitoli, M., ‘Il ninfeo minore della villa detta di Cicerone a Forrnia’, Mitt. Deut. Archäol. Inst., LXXIX (1972), pp. 191-219Google Scholar.
36 Adriani, op. cit. (n. 14), pp. 162–71, pl. 86–95.
37 Deipnosophistae, V, 196A–197C.
38 L’Orange, H. P., ‘Domus Aurea, der Sonnenpalast’, republished in Likeness and Icon; Selected Studies in Classical and Early Medieval Art (Odense, 1973), pp. 292-312Google Scholar; Studies on the Iconography of Cosmic Kingship in the Ancient World (Oslo, 1953), pp. 28-34; Lehmann, op. cit. (n. 16); Hemsoll, op. cit. (n. 29).
