Rome opened a restored gallery beneath the Baths of Trajan this month, showing a 33-by-52-foot mosaic and a fresco of an unknown city. Archaeologist Francesco Pacetti says the mosaic may be the largest wall mosaic found in the Roman world; digging continues.
The fresco depicts a walled maritime city from above. The works were found beneath Oppian Hill in the 1990s. Specialists think both were already old when the baths were completed in 109 C.E.; some researchers suspect they may originally have belonged to Nero's Domus Aurea, begun around 65 C.E. and unfinished when he died in 68 C.E.
September access trials admitted 15 people at a time so officials could gauge how the long-buried artworks responded to more visitors and environmental changes. Conservators removed surface deposits, made the images easier to see and strengthened the grouting. An above-ground semicircular exedra, thought to have functioned as a library, will also be open to visitors.
