The name of Nero's palace comes from the gilding on its fa�ade. It was a collection of buildings, rather than a single structure and Axel Boethius [ author of a book on The golden house of nero (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 1960) described it as 'a fanciful landscape garden containing magnificent casinos in the centre of Rome, a 'rus in urbe'' (p 103). He attributes the describtion to Martial xii.57.21
