The Domus Aurea, Emperor Nero's vast
pleasure dome, reopens Wednesday with a show on how Raphael
'invented the grotesque' by lowering himself into the cupola and
copying its extraordinary frescoes.
'Grotesque' comes from the Italian for cave, 'grotto', and
refers to these fanciful wall paintings of flora and fauna that
the Renaissance master - and others like Pintoricchio -
painstakingly imitated from the Golden House.
The exhibition, titled Raphael and the Domus Aurea, the
Invention of the Grotesque', runs until January 7 next year.
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