Rome - Palatine Hill Palatino

There are four routes of access to the Palatine. The first leads from Via San Gregorio Magno through the gateway designed by Vignola as the entrance to the Farnese Gardens. The other three start from the Forum: the Clivus Capitolinus, which leads past the Arch of Titus; the flight of steps at the House of the Vestals; and the large vaulted passage at Santa Maria Antiqua.

Politicians such as Agrippa, the great art patron, and writers including Cicero had houses on the Palatine. Augustus, who was born here, enlarged his father's mansion, and under Augustus and his successors a whole series of splendid palaces, temples and public buildings were erected, reaching in the reign of Domitian the form in which we see their remains today. Since each generation carried out alterations and rebuilding, it is now difficult to disentangle the different periods of construction. During the Middle Ages the splendors of the Palatine fell into eclipse. Numbers of convents and churches - the oratory of Caesarius, Santa Anastasia, Santa Lucia, San Sebastiano - were built over the remains of the pagan buildings, and the noble Frangipane family used them to establish a fortified stronghold. In the 16th century wealthy families, including the Ronconi, Mattei, Spada, Magnani and Barberini, laid out gardens on the hill, and Cardinal Alessandro Farnese commissioned famous architects to give the Palatine park its final form. The Palatine began to attract archeological interest in the 18th century. The names of many buildings on the Palatine were known from the works of Roman writers, but some buildings of major importance could not be located on the ground, and even today have not been found. The Palatine was frequently ravaged by fire; and as a result of these and other vicissitudes in its history it is now reduced, like the Forum, to a great field of ruins - but highly impressive and evocative ruins.

The Domus Augustana seems to have been not so much the house of Augustus himself as the residence of the Imperial house (augusta). Although not yet fully excavated, this building of two and three storys is still immensely impressive, with its monumental and yet harmonious dimensions. Built, like the Palace of the Flavians, in the reign of Domitian, it was at first the residence of successive Emperors but later, right down to Byzantine times, was occupied by high dignitaries of the Empire as their residence and place of work.

To the north of the House of Livia in Rome are the remains of the Cryptoporticus, a semi-subterranean barrel-vaulted corridor 130m/430ft long which linked the various Imperial palaces (the palace of Tiberius, Livia and Flavians) with one another. Tradition has it that the Emperor Caligula was murdered by conspirators in this corridor in A.D. 41.

The Temple of Cybele (or of Magna Mater, the Great Mother) in the Farnese Gardens was built in 204 B.C. to house the "Black Stone" of the goddess, following guidance given by the Sibylline Books. Rock-cuttings found in front of the temple represent the earliest evidence of human settlement on the Palatine (ninth-eighth centuries B.C.), a dwelling site of the early Iron Age which has been christened the "House of Romulus".