The Griffin House, built 2,200 years ago, opened to the public for the first time

Rome, Jan 13 (EFE).- Hidden under the imperial palaces of the Palatine, the Domus de los Grifos, one of the oldest houses in the Roman Republic, opens its doors to the public thanks to an innovative restoration and access project financed with European funds from the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR).

Built at the end of the 2nd century BC and discovered at the beginning of the 20th century, the House of the Griffins constitutes an exceptional example of domestic architecture prior to the Roman Empire due to the degree of conservation of its wall paintings and mosaics, which are a reference for the study of what is known as the second Pompeian style.

“The House of the Griffins is a book for archaeologists, a fundamental book for the history of painting and ancient mosaics,” archaeologist Federica Rinaldi, scientific leader of the project, explained to EFE this Tuesday.

View of one of the underground rooms of the House of Griffins in Rome (EFE).

Between conservation and dissemination

The route, designed to protect the fragility of the site, allows you to observe every detail without touching the original floor, since visitors do not walk directly on the mosaics or inside the rooms to avoid any damage to the frescoes and tesserae.

“We cannot allow even a millimeter of pictorial surface or a single tile of the mosaic to be lost,” says Rinaldi.

Instead, an operator equipped with a camera and microphone walks through the underground rooms and transmits the images in real time, creating a live, guided tour that seeks to reconcile conservation and dissemination.

They opened the Griffin House built 2,200 years ago to the public for the first time (Reuters).

«It is a unique tour because it is not computer-generated images,» emphasizes Rinaldi, because «the public sees exactly what the operator observes, live, while receiving explanations and details about the history and decoration of the place.»

During today’s presentation to the media, journalists were able to physically descend into the underground rooms, an exceptional access reserved only for the opening day and which allowed them to closely observe the frescoes, mosaics and original structures.

Among the most notable spaces is the room that gives its name to the domus, decorated with a stucco lunette where two winged griffins (figures from Greco-Roman mythology) face each other around a central motif.

The Domus de los Grifos, one of the oldest houses in the Roman Republic (EFE).

Beyond the Colosseum

The project is part of the Caput Mundi program, promoted by the Colosseum Archaeological Park with funds from the PNRR, which foresees ten interventions to open hidden spaces of the Palatine and the Roman Forum to the public.

The director of the park, Simone Quilici, explained to EFE that the concentration of these projects in the Palatine also seeks to redistribute tourist flows, traditionally dominated by the Colosseum.

According to Quilici, this domus allows you to explore private Rome, before the imperial palaces, where wealthy families of the Republican period lived, which makes it a «special site» because it offers information about an era of which there are few preserved examples on the Palatine.

The house was discovered at the beginning of the 20th century (Reuters).

This archaeological site «is one of those secret places that finally become visible» since «it had never been open to the public in a structured way» since its discovery, explained the director of the Department for the Valorization of Cultural Heritage of the Italian Ministry of Culture, Alfonsina Russo, during the opening.

The Domus of the Griffins can be visited starting March 3, every Tuesday and with prior reservation, in guided tours in Italian and English, as an exceptional window to the Republican era that for centuries remained hidden under imperial Rome.

EFE Agency.