Baths of Diocletian

Thermae Diocletiani

Heliog J. Chauvet

Rome, Lazio, Italy

northeast summit of the Viminal Hill

area is bordered by Via del Viminale, Piazza della Repubblica, Via Cernaia, Via Volturno, Piazza dei Cinquecento and Via XX Settembre

54.4

Italy

298-306 CE (creation)

3rd century

4th century

restored main building plan, plans

Diocletian’s largest single project in Rome was the great baths that bear his name on the Viminal Hill (ca. AD 298-ca. 306). Their layout owes much to the Baths of Caracalla, although they are even larger in scale. The central bathing block is a building of considerable complexity with its changing rooms, open-air swimming pool, bathing halls, hot and cold pools, palaestrae (exercise grounds) and warren of service corridors and furnace rooms. Many of the rooms have been preserved because various parts later were converted to ecclesiastical or other use. Parts of the frigidarium were transformed by Michelangelo into the church of S Maria degli Angeli (1566), with the result that some of the original spatial and lighting effects of the interior can still be appreciated. The church of San Bernardo alle Terme uses one of two circular rooms and the main hall and octagonal aula are parts of museums.

Architectural Documentation

public baths

health and welfare buildings

plans

Imperial (Roman)

Ancient Roman

botanical

rulers and leaders

Diocletian, Emperor of Rome, 245-313

Restoration and conservation

Roman Empire

architectural reuse

Seure, Georges. Monuments antiques, relevés et restaurés par les architectes pensionnaires de l’Académie de France à Rome

notices archéologiques par Georges Seure. Paris: C. Massin, 1910, 163.

Public Domain