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The word grotto comes from Italian grotta, Vulgar Latin grupta, and Latin crypta ("a crypt"). [2] It is also related by a historical accident to the word grotesque.In the late 15th century, Romans accidentally unearthed Nero's Domus Aurea on the Palatine Hill, a series of rooms, decorated with designs of garlands, slender architectural framework, foliage, and animals.
The origins of the Vatican Grottoes date back to the 16th century, specifically around 1590–1591, when they were constructed to support the floor of the Renaissance-era St. Peter's Basilica.
At a more general level it served to aggrandise Hiero, as its builder, demonstrating his wealth and piety. In this, it represented the culmination of a long Sicilian Greek tradition of monumental altars - the 54.5 metre long altar of the fifth-century Temple of Olympian Zeus at Agrigento is an important precursor.
Grotto of the Nativity, fourteen-point silver star under the main altar marking the traditional spot of Jesus' birth. The Grotto of the Nativity, the place where Jesus is said to have been born, is an underground space which forms the crypt of the Church of the Nativity. It is situated underneath its main altar, and it is normally accessed by ...
They served the threefold purpose of sanctuaries, reservoirs and assembly-rooms. A special feature was their use for the celebration of marriages. Such nymphaea existed in Corinth, Antioch and Constantinople; the remains of some twenty have been found in Rome and many in Africa.
Representation of an ornamental hermit in Germany in the late 18th century. Garden hermits or ornamental hermits were people encouraged to live alone in purpose-built hermitages, follies, grottoes, or rockeries on the estates of wealthy landowners, primarily during the 18th century.
The Shrine of the Grotto of the Redemption is a religious shrine in West Bend, Iowa, in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Sioux City. A conglomeration of nine grottos depicting scenes in the life of Jesus , it contains a large collection of minerals and petrifications and is believed to be the largest grotto in the world.
The grottoes are formed in 1 km of the stretch of this river and were carved on both banks, in limestone formations creating the Longmen Caves. Most of the work was done on the western bank, while the eastern bank caves, of smaller numbers, served as residences for the large groups of monks. [2] [4]