The construction of the Domus Aurea (the Golden House) was considered as one of the most crazy enterprises of the city . When two thirds of Rome were burnt down by the big fire in 64 AD, emperor Nero (54-68 AD) used the free space for a new accommodation. The architects have done all possible things to satisfy his megalomania. The accommodation had to cover four districts. The palace itself radiated a tremendous luxury.
The most important part was a large rectangle at the Oppius hill where the four corner parts covered the four districts. The rooms, halls and corridors were abundantly decorated with gold, silver and precious stones. The eastern wing of the accommodation was used for public receptions. The western wing was the house of Nero. It was said that it had a round dining-room, which turned around day and night, inspired by the revolutions of the earth.
Nero wasn't the sole Roman who loved the 'rus in urbe', the countryside elements and park -like scenery in the city. Vineyards, orchards, vegetable gardens and parks, pastures and forests with grazing herds and animals appeared around the palace, at the Caelius, near the Fagutal - the altar in the holy forest at the Esquiline, and at the Oppius. Near by the entrance of the Domus Aurea stood a gigantic statue of Nero, the Colossus Neronis.
It was a bronze statue of a male with a height of 37,2 meters and carved by the Greek Zenodoros.
After Nero's death, the Golden House was a severe embarrassment to his successors. It was stripped of its marble, its jewels and its ivory within a decade. Soon after Nero’s death, the palace and grounds, encompassing 2.6 kilometers², were filled with earth and built over: the Baths of Titus were already being built on part of the site in 79. On the site of the lake in the middle of the palace grounds, Vespasian built the Flavian Amphitheatre, which could be reflooded at will, with the Colossus Neronis beside it. The Baths of Trajan, and the Temple of Venus and Rome, were built on the site. Within 40 years, the Golden House was completely obliterated, buried beneath the new construction, but paradoxically this ensured that the wallpaintings' survival by protecting them from the damp.
When a young Roman inadvertently fell through a cleft in the Aventine hillside at the end of the 15th century, he found himself in a strange cave or grotta filled with painted figures. Soon the young artists of Rome were having themselves let down on boards knotted to ropes to see for themselves. The fourth style frescos that were uncovered then have faded to pale gray stains on the plaster now, but the effect of these freshly-rediscovered grottesche decorations was electrifying in the early Renaissance, which was just arriving in Rome. When Pinturicchio, Raphael and Michelangelo crawled underground and were let down shafts to study them, carving their names on the walls to let the world know they had been there, the paintings were a revelation of the true world of antiquity. Beside the graffiti signatures of later tourists, like Casanova and the Marquis de Sade scratched into a fresco inches apart (British Archaeology June 1999), are the autographs of Domenico Ghirlandaio, Martin van Heemskerck, and Filippino Lippi.
Their effect on Renaissance artists was instant and profound (it can be seen most obviously in Raphael's decoration for the loggias in the Vatican), and the white walls, delicate swags, and bands of frieze — framed reserves containg figures or landscapes — have returned at intervals ever since, notably in late 18th century Neoclassicism, making Fabullus one of the most influential painters in the history of art.
But discovery meant letting in moisture - and that started the slow, inevitable process of decay. Heavy rain was blamed in the collapse of a chunk of ceiling reported in the July/Aug 2001 issue of Archaeology.
Increasing concerns about the condition of the building and the safety of visitors resulted in it being closed again at the end of 2005, for further restoration work. Current estimates are that it will not reopen before 2008.

The church of Santa Prassede ( Saint Pudenziana's sister) was founded in the IXth century by Pope Pasquale II where there was an oratory.Byzantine artists adorned the church with golden mosaics. Those in the apse and in the courus rapresent the ancestors in white clothes, the elects who look down from Heaven, lambs with thin paws and lovely red poppies.Saint Prassede and Saint Pudenziana are beside Christ, surrounded by the warm and paternal embrase of Saint Paul and Saint Peter. You can admire dazzling mosaics also in the Chapel of Saint Zeno,built as mausoleum of Pope Pasquale II's mother, Teodora.

It is most famous for housing Michelangelo's statue Moses.
The basilica was first built in the middle of the 5th Century to house the relic of the chains that bound Saint Peter while imprisoned in Jerusalem. According to legend, when Empress Eudoxia (wife of Emperor Valentinian III) gave Pope Leo I the chains as a gift, he compared them to the chains of St. Peter's first imprisonment in the Mamertine Prison in Rome and the two chains miraculously fused together. The chains are kept in a reliquary under the main altar in the basilica.
The basilica underwent several restorations and rebuildings in its life, among them a restoration by Pope Adrian I, a rebuilding by Pope Sixtus IV and another by Pope Julius II. There was also a renovation in 1875.
The front portico, attributed to Baccio Pontelli, was added in 1475.
The interior has a nave and two aisles, with three apses divided by antique Doric-style columns. The aisles are surmounted by cross-vaults, while the nave has a 18th century lacunar ceiling. In the centre of the latter is a fresco by Giovanbattista Parodi, portraying the Miracle of the Chains.
Michelangelo's Moses, which dates from 1515, is the most notable piece of artwork in the basilica. Originally intended as part of a 47-statue free-standing funeral monument for Pope Julius II, "Moses" became the Pope's funeral monument and tomb in his family's church. Unfortunately, Moses is depicted with satyr's horns, as opposed to "the radiance of the Lord", due to a mediaeval mistranslation.
Other art works include two canvas of Saint Augustine and St. Margret by Guercino, the monument of cardinal Agucchi designed by Domenichino (also author of a canvas depicting the Liberation of St. Peter). The cloister (1493-1503) has been attributed to Giuliano da Sangallo.
Painter and sculptor Antonio Pollaiuolo is buried here.

The Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore — also known as the Basilica di Santa Maria della Neve and Basilica Liberiana in the Italian language and Saint Mary Major Basilica or the Liberian Basilica in the English language — is one of the four major basilicas, and one of the five Patriarchal basilicas associated with the Pentarchy: St. John Lateran, St. Lawrence outside the Walls, St. Peter and St. Paul outside the Walls, and Santa Maria Maggiore. The Liberian Basilica is one of the tituli, presided over by a patron—in this case Pope Liberius—that housed the major congregations of early Christians in Rome. Built over the pagan temple of Cybele, Santa Maria Maggiore is the only Roman basilica that retained the core of its original structure, left intact despite several additional construction projects and damage from the earthquake of 1348.
The name of the church reflects two ideas of greatness, both that of a major basilica as opposed to a minor basilica and also that of the Blessed Virgin Mary, as the true Mother of God. In the Greek language this doctrine is called Theotokos, officially adopted at the Council of Ephesus in 431. The Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore is the largest and most important place of prayer dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary.
After the Avignon papacy formally ended and the Papacy returned to Rome, the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore became a temporary Palace of the Popes due to the deteriorated state of the Lateran Palace. The papal residence was later moved to the Palace of the Vatican in present-day Vatican City.
The present building dates from the time of Pope Sixtus III (432 - 440) and contains many ancient mosaics from this period. The Athenian marble columns supporting the nave are even older, and either come from the first basilica, or from an antique Roman building. The 16th century coffered ceiling, to a design by Giuliano da Sangallo is said to be gilded with Incan gold presented by Ferdinand and Isabella to the Spanish pope Alexander VI. The medieval bell tower is the highest in Rome, at 240 feet, (about 75 m.). The apse mosaic, the Coronation of the Virgin, is from the late 13th century, by the Franciscan friar, Jacopo Torriti. The Basilica also contains frescoes by Giovanni Baglione.
The façade with its screening loggia was added by Pope Benedict XIV in 1743, to designs by Ferdinando Fuga that did not damage the mosaics of the façade. The wing of the canonica (sacristy to its left and a matching wing to the right (designed by Flaminio Ponzio) give the basilica's front the aspect of a palace facing Piazza Santa Maria Maggiore. To the right of the Basilica's façade is a memorial representing a column in the form of an up-ended cannon barrel topped with a cross: it was erected by Pope Clement VIII immediately after the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre of Protestants, though today it is reputed to celebrate the end of the French Wars of Religion.
The Marian column erected in 1614, to designs of Carlo Maderno is the model for numerous Marian columns erected in Catholic countries in thanksgiving for remission of the plague during the Baroque era. (An example is the Holy Trinity Column in Olomouc, the Czech Republic). The column itself is the sole remaining from Constantine's Temple of Peace in Campo Vaccino, as the faithful called the Roman Forum as late as the 18th century; Maderno's fountain at the base combines the armorial eagles and dragons of Paul V.
The column in the Piazza celebrates the famous icon of the Virgin Mary in the Pauline chapel of the Basilica. It is known as Salus Populi Romani, or Health of the Roman People, due to a miracle in which the icon helped keep plague from the city. The icon is at least a thousand years old, and tradition holds that it was painted from life by St Luke the Evangelist.

During the opening of the via Merulana in 1874, a large complex of ancient buildings over the Mura Serviane was discovered by chance, although the auditorium was the only structure preserved. The auditorium was a large, apsidal room about 24m long, which was divided into four parts: a vestibule on the southeastern end, a kind of rectangular hall (13m long and 5m wide); the main hall (11m wide and 13m long), an exedra with steps with a radius of about 5m and a double access ramp on the southwestern end about 3m wide. The complex, under the ground at the time, was built in a tufa network. In the rectangular hall, a well-known place of worship, there were six niches for each wall, decorated with statues that seemed alive. The marble decorations were mostly used on the ledges of the niches and the esedra steps. The material used was the Caristio marble commonly called "cipollino". This apsidal hall, is part of the greater complex and was brought to light in 1874 by Vespignani and Visconti, following excavation works required by the Piano Regolatore for the new Umbertino suburb with the Piazza Vittorio of today as its centre. Except for this apsidal hall, the entire complex, known as the Villa di Mecenate, where there was the Villa Caetani, was demolished. This hall was built on a section of the Mura Serviane departing from the Porta Esquilina and placed in the embankment behind them.

The Arch of Gallienus is one of the gates of the Servian wall, which surrounded Rome from the fourth century BCE. Its original name was Porta Esquilina. The gate was rebuilt by the emperor Augustus (30 BCE - 14 CE; he also ordered the reconstruction of another ancient gate, the Arch of Dolabella). By then, there were two smaller arches to the left and right of the Esquiline gate, but they were demolished during the Renaissance.
The triple gate was converted into a triumphal arch by the time of the emperor Gallienus (260-268), who tried to keep the empire together in the difficult third quarter of the third century. The arch, seen from the east. The building to the right is the church of San Vito. The inscription (CIL VI.1106) reads "Aurelius Victor, the excellent man, [dedicated this] in complete devotion to their majesties' will, to Gallienus, the most clement emperor, whose unconquerable virtue is only outdone by his piety, and to the sacred empress Salonina".
The road leading to the west was called the Clivus Suburanus and is is identical to the modern Via S. Vito and Via S. Martino. The sequel, the Via S. Madonna dei Monti, follows the course of the ancient Argiletum, the main road to the Forum.