LED Christmas Lights Appear on the Aula Rotonda of Rome's Baths of Diocletian

LED Christmas lights have been installed on an apse of the Aula Rotonda, the circular hall on Via del Viminale at the corner of Piazza dei Cinquecento that forms part of the Baths of Diocletian in Rome. The baths were built between 298 and 306 AD, covered roughly thirteen hectares and could hold up to three thousand people at once. In 1705 Pope Clement XI incorporated the hall into the public Granaio Clementino, sparing it from the destruction for which it had been earmarked. The brick and Roman concrete walls survive only narrowly, and the author argues that this history deserves consideration before lights are hung on them. The Aula Rotonda, distinct from its twin the Aula Ottagona, today houses a restaurant and a car rental office. The article notes that ancient Romans were pragmatic about lighting: imperial triumphs were staged by day, with torches, braziers and thousands of oil lamps deployed when celebrations ran long, while Rome had no permanent public street lighting and only taverns and inns were reliably lit at night. Creative dressing of commercial interiors is an established practice, the author concedes, but the Baths of Diocletian should not become a shop window for visibility, since cultural heritage protection requires specific rules and authorizations for interventions on monuments, and the Soprintendenze normally act for far less. The piece is by Maria Isabella Safarik and was published by Artribune.