Domus Aurea Virtual Reality Tours

Rome’s Domus Aurea will offer Virtual Reality Tours to visitors. You can visit the Domus Aurea every weekend from 4 February. It provide visual insights into how Emperor Nero’s golden palace looked 2,000 years ago.

3D tours must booked in advance. It accommodates groups of up to 25 people. The visit will focus on the Golden Vault room and various outdoor areas including the surrounding gardens.

Francesco Prosperetti, superintendent for Rome’s archaeological heritage, described the project as an “unprecedented immersive and multimedia experience” which would “recover memories lost since the time of Trajan.”

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Located on the Colle Oppio hill in front of the Colosseum, the Domus Aurea partially reopened for guided tours at the end of 2014. It closed for six years after closing due to landslides concerns.

The work in progress will continue until 2018. A total budget of over 30 million euros will be needed for the safety and restoration of the underground site.

Built by Nero (37-68 AD) after the great fire of Rome in 64 AD, the vast complex of the Domus Aurea covered much of the nearby Palatine Hill. Then subsequently the Celio Hill at the time of its completion. The rooms decorated with frescoes depicting fantastic creatures; griffins; and winged lions. The walls, on the other hand, adorned with semi-precious stones and gold leaf.

The emperor Trajan later built the famous Baths of Trajan on the Domus Aurea. While the Colosseum was built on the site of a dried up lake that once belonged to the extravagant complex.

During the Renaissance artists such as Raphael, Pinturicchio and Michelangelo descended with ropes in the Domus Aurea. From it they learned the perspective used in the ancient frescoes. The artists engraved their names on the walls as proof of their visit.