The Divorum, also known as the Templum Divorum (Degrassi 13.1.103, 233) and the Porticus Divorum, was a porticus with two small temples built in honor of Titus and Vespasian by Domitian, who constructed the complex after the first of 80 CE on the si...
LOWER PERISTYLE
The lower peristyles of the Domus Augustana, the private area of the Flavian Palace, was sumptuously decorated with a large fountain in the shape of four peltae (semi-circular shields that were common motifs for gardens of the early ...
Famous for its innovative architecture, the Domus Aurea contained equally impressive gardens. After the fire of 64 CE, Nero erected this monumental residence, replacing the damaged Domus Transitoria. While the exact boundaries of the property are un...
UPPER PERISTYLE AND NYMPHAEA
The grandiose Palace that the architect Rabirius built for Domitian when garden art was at its apex made an enormous impression on his contemporaries, as one gathers from the praises heaped upon it by the writers of the ...
The remains of this domus, on the western part of the Palatine, are now under the Renaissance Farnese gardens. The Domus Tiberiana is first mentioned after the death of Nero: Plutarch and Tacitus refer to it in the context of the turbulent events of...
During the period of Domitian (81-96 CE), a large artificial platform with massive substructures at the north, east and west was completed at the site of the Vigna Barberini. On this platform stood a large structure with a curvilinear plan at the so...
The building of a religious complex, identified by scholars as the Elagabalium (Heliogablium), later dedicated to Jupiter (Iupiter Ultor), was the final transformation in antiquity of the northwestern terrace (Fig. 1). This enormous west-facing peri...
The Aedes Hercules Musarum was located in the southern Campus Martius. It was enclosed by the Porticus Philippi (61 x 92 m.) in the late Republican period. Known from several fragments of the Severan Marble Plan (Forma Urbis Romae), it was also adja...
This important house, the Domus Augusti, which incorporated part of the earlier Domus of Quintus Hortensius (Vell. Pat. II.81 | Trans.), must have contained important gardens. Yet excavations carried out in the 1960s, although identifying remains as...
The Mausoleum of Augustus was located in the northern Campus Martius between the Via Flaminia and the Tiber. The exact bounds of the park are unknown, but they stretched from north of the Mausoleum of Augustus to south of the Horologium and the Ara ...
In the Neronian period the architecture and the size of gardens changed substantially, as did the building criteria and urban organization of the city. With Nero, the Romans feared for the first time that Rome could become a single, grandiose reside...
Located on the Oppian hill between the Clivus Suburanus and the later Baths of Trajan (Thermae Traiani) in the Subura, the Porticus Liviae is represented on three fragments of the Severan Marble Plan (FUR). The public porticus was constructed on the...
Completed in 55 BCE on the Campus Martius, the Porticus Pompeianae, or Porticus of Pompey, was Rome’s first public park (Plin. HN 37.6.13; Propertius 2.32.11 | Trans.; Vitruvius De Arch. 5.9.1). Funded by the eastern victories of the general Gnaeus ...
At the end of the Republican era and the beginning of the Empire, residential dwellings occupied, at least in part, the northeastern corner of the Palatine. Two distinct excavation areas have revealed the partial remains of one or more domus in the ...
In the Republican period, by the 1st century BCE, the Palatine Hill had small but numerous gardens associated with the well-appointed houses (domus) situated upon it. Among these numerous residences were those of L. Lucius Crassus, famous for its si...
An important garden area in the Flavian Palace was the so-called "Stadium", actually a hippodromus, as late authors in fact called it. This term, which is often used with regard to major villas, usually indicates an elongated rectangular s...
The most visible remains from this period are a massive series of substructure arcades along the slope of the Palatine overlooking the Circus Maximus. It had been considered that this area was a thermae, a bath complex, from the time of Septimius Se...
Knowledge of this thermae, or bathing complex, and its associated public gardens comes from textual evidence and the Severan Marble Plan (FUR) (Figs. 1–2). Located in the central Campus Martius, Agrippa’s thermae, the Thermae Agrippae, were associat...
The artificial terrace that now carries the Barberini family name is located on the northeastern corner of the Palatine, beyond the visible remains of the Flavian Imperial palace (Fig. 1). Excavations carried out during the 1930s by A. Bartoli, and ...