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The House of Augustus

The first emperor's house on the Palatine, and the best-preserved Roman wall painting in the city.

Second Style Frescoes • The Room of the Masks • A SUPER Site

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Tuesday to Sunday

Closed on Mondays, and on the free-admission first Sunday of the month.

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20-30 Minutes

Three small rooms. Add the House of Livia next door on the same ticket.

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Needs the SUPER Ticket

Forum Pass SUPER or Full Experience. The standard Colosseum ticket does not open it.

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On the Palatine Hill

Above the Circus Maximus side of the hill, inside the archaeological park.

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Neighborhood: Monti, Celio

Same approach as the Palatine. Enter at Via di San Gregorio 30.

Why Visit

Three small rooms on the Palatine hold the best-preserved Roman wall painting in the city, and they belonged to the man who ended the Republic. The scale is domestic and the quality is not. You are standing close enough to touch both walls of a room that was decorated for the first emperor.

A Little History

Augustus lived on the Palatine deliberately, next to the spot where Rome was supposed to have been founded, in a house his biographers went out of their way to call modest. The rooms that survive are painted in the Second Style, the illusionistic phase where columns, cornices and openings are painted onto a flat wall to pretend the wall is not there. Modest is not the word.

Did You Know?

The Room of the Masks is named for the small theatrical masks set into its painted architecture, part of a scheme built around the idea of looking through a wall onto a stage. The floors are laid in black and white mosaic, and the rooms are opened on a separate ticket from the rest of the hill.

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SECOND STYLE

The Painted Rooms

Wall painting from the last decades of the Republic, in rooms small enough to touch both walls. Painted columns, cornices and openings that pretend the wall is not there.

Painted room in the House of Augustus, red panels between slender columns above a striped dado.
Painting That Pretends to Be ArchitectureThe columns, the cornice and the panels are all paint on a flat wall. This is what Second Style means.
Long painted wall of a vaulted room in the House of Augustus, red panels under a moulded cornice.
Under the VaultOne wall of the room end to end, with the plaster cornice modelled in relief above the painted scheme.
Room of the Pine Festoons in the House of Augustus, painted garlands above a mosaic-bordered floor.
The Room of the Pine FestoonsThe Room of the Pine Festoons. Its floor label is in the frame.
Painted pine garlands swagged between slender red columns on a wall of the House of Augustus.
Garlands and ColumnsThe festoon frieze up close, in the same room.
Corner of a painted room in the House of Augustus, red panels and slender columns on both walls.
Around the CornerThe room the Parco calls the Room of the Masks, from the corner, showing how far the painting runs.
Coffered painted ceiling in the House of Augustus, red lozenges and small figures in yellow frames.
OverheadLooking up at the painted ceiling.
PAINT AND LIGHT

The Projected Reconstruction

A projection exhibition reconstructed the decoration these rooms have lost, throwing it onto the walls and, in one room, onto the floor. Second Style painting ran from the skirting to the vault and covered every surface, and only a fraction of it survives here. The pairs below are one room with the projection off and then on.

Painted room in the House of Augustus in plain light, red panels and an arched central panel.
The Room With Nothing On ItThe same room as the columns frame in the section above, lit plainly, with nothing projected onto it.
Projected decoration lying over the surviving fresco of a painted room, House of Augustus.
The Same Room, With the Exhibition On ItThe projection completing a wall that still has most of its own painting. The pale patch in the middle is a real plaster loss, and the light washes straight over it.
A room of the House of Augustus unlit, its far painted wall visible above a bare earth floor.
The Room, Projection OffThe room with the projection off. Paired with the next frame.
A projected reconstruction of the lost decoration fills the end wall and floor of a room, House of Augustus.
The Same Room, Projection OnThe same room with the videomapping running. The architecture on the wall is projected light, not paint.
Vaulted passage in the House of Augustus in plain light, painted stucco surviving high on the right wall.
The Vault, PlainThe vaulted passage before the projection. Paired with the next frame.
Projected reconstruction of painted decoration filling the arch of a vaulted passage, House of Augustus.
The Vault, ProjectedThe same passage with the projection running. Everything in the arch is projected light.
Projected reconstruction of wall painting and a lozenge floor filling a bare room, House of Augustus.
A Whole Room Rebuilt in LightWalls and floor together. None of this is paint or mosaic, and the projector doing it is visible on the ceiling at the top of the frame.
A projected white lattice laid over the rough stone floor of a room in the House of Augustus.
A Floor of LightThe floor pattern is projected onto the bare stone.

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Visiting Tips

  • Check your ticket before you climb the hill. The standard Colosseum, Forum and Palatine ticket does not open these rooms. You want the Forum Pass SUPER or the Full Experience.
  • Closed on Mondays, and closed on the free first Sunday of the month, which is the day most people try to come.
  • The House of Livia is next door on the same ticket and closes on Tuesdays instead of Mondays. Come Wednesday to Saturday if you want both without thinking about it.
  • Anything that looks too vivid to be two thousand years old is projected. The reconstruction goes onto the bare plaster where the original painting is lost, and in one room onto the floor as well.

Photo Opportunities

  • The rooms are small and dim and the paint is the subject. Brace against a doorway rather than pushing the ISO, and shoot the corners, where you can see how far a scheme carries around a room.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the House of Augustus included in my Colosseum ticket?
No. It is a SUPER site, and the standard Colosseum, Roman Forum and Palatine ticket does not open it. The Forum Pass SUPER and the Full Experience ticket both do, and they also cover the House of Livia, Santa Maria Antiqua, the Domus Tiberiana exhibition rooms, the Palatine Museum and the Aula Isiaca.
What is Second Style painting?
The illusionistic phase of Roman wall painting, roughly the first century BC. Columns, cornices, doorways and distant scenes are painted onto a flat plaster wall so that the wall appears to open onto something else. The rooms here are among the best surviving examples anywhere.
What do the projections in the photographs show?
A reconstruction of the decoration these rooms have lost. Second Style painting ran from the skirting to the vault and covered every surface, and what survives here is a fraction of it, so the fragments are hard to read as part of a whole. A projection exhibition put the missing scheme back onto the bare plaster, and in one room onto the floor. The pairs in the gallery are the same room with the projection off and then on, which is how you tell the two apart.
Which rooms can I actually see?
The two named rooms are the Room of the Masks and the Room of the Pine Festoons, along with the large chamber and the lower cubicle. They are small, entry is limited, and the visit is short by design.

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