Ancient Rome meets modern technology as one of the Palatine Hill’s best-preserved homes opens to the public for the first time, with access coming through a livestream rather than in-person entry.
The House of the Griffins, located underground on the Palatine just off the Colosseum, will allow virtual visitors to tour hard-to-reach frescoes and mosaics starting March 3, the Associated Press reported.
The livestreamed tours will be held weekly on Tuesdays, with one tour in Italian and one in English, and more sessions are foreseen. Groups are limited to a dozen people and require reservations, along with an additional ticket beyond the typical Colosseum-Palatine Hill entrance fee.
Visitors above ground will not walk through the home’s intimate rooms. Access is described as possible only via a perilously steep staircase underground, so the experience will instead be conducted by a tour guide descending into the domus while wearing a head-mounted smartphone to livestream the visit and narration.
The virtual tour serves what organizers describe as practical conservation and access goals: it lets people “see” a domus that would otherwise be off-limits because of its underground location, while limiting the number of people able to enter the rooms to protect delicate frescoes from exposure to humidity and carbon dioxide.
The House of the Griffins was first discovered during excavations in the early 20th century of the Palatine Hill, a verdant hill that rises from the Roman Forum and today is marked by striking red-brick ruins. The site was once home to temples and residences of leading citizens in the Republican era, and later became an aristocratic quarter in the Roman Empire, when palaces were built over earlier homes.
The House of the Griffins is described as an earlier Republican-era home that was hidden from the world underground after Emperor Domitian built his palace on top of it in the first century A.D. The decoration preserved there includes an arched lunette fresco featuring two griffins—mythological creatures half-eagle, half-lion—which provides the home its name.
Project chief Federica Rinaldi told the AP that archaeologists don’t know much about the family who lived in the house, but that they were “clearly well-off.” She also said, “Its location at the highest point of the hill, its distribution over several levels that take advantage of the slopes of the Palatine Hill itself, and its preservation make it today an almost textbook reference,” adding, “It was certainly a domus of the highest standard.”
Restoration work has also highlighted decorative details, including richly colored faux marble designs in the frescoes and floor mosaics of three-dimensional cubes. The AP report said the level of decoration recalls elegant homes from Pompeii.
The restoration is one of 10 projects funded by the European Union in the archaeological park, and it is part of efforts to spread tourists out beyond the Colosseum and Forum, which can often become overwhelmed. Simone Quilici, the head of the park, said the restoration is “a great occasion to value the full territory of the park.”