The remains of a vast palace built by the Emperor Nero, including a 50-seat latrine where slaves and workers would chat while they attended to their needs, opens to the public for the first time today.

The Domus Transitoria was a huge palace on the Palatine Hill, in the heart of ancient Rome, which was constructed in the first century AD by Nero, one of Rome’s most notorious emperors.

The palace was partially destroyed during a fire in 64 AD in which Nero famously fiddled – or played the lyre – while the imperial capital burned.