Editing Grotesque (section)

===Early examples in Roman ornament===
In art, grotesques are ornamental arrangements of [[Arabesque (European art)|arabesque]]s with interlaced garlands and small and fantastic human and animal figures, usually set out in a [[symmetrical]] pattern around some form of architectural framework, though this may be very flimsy. Such designs were fashionable in ancient [[Rome]], especially as fresco wall decoration and floor mosaic. Stylized versions, common in Imperial Roman decoration, were decried by [[Vitruvius]] (c. 30 BC) who, in dismissing them as meaningless and illogical, offered the following description: 
 <blockquote>For example, reeds are substituted for columns, fluted appendages with curly leaves and volutes take the place of pediments, candelabra support representations of shrines, and on top of their roofs grow slender stalks and volutes with human figures senselessly seated upon them.<ref>Vitruvius 7.5.3 ({{cite book |last1=Marcus Vitruvius Pollio |translator1-last=Morgan |translator1-first=Morris Hicky |title=Ten Books on Architecture |date=1914 |publisher=Harvard University Press |location=Cambridge MA |url=https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/Ten_Books_on_Architecture/Book_VII}})</ref></blockquote>

Emperor [[Nero]]'s palace in Rome, the [[Domus Aurea]], was rediscovered by chance in the late 15th century, buried in fifteen hundred years of land fill. Access into the palace's remains was from above, requiring visitors to be lowered into it using ropes as in a cave, or ''[[grotto|grotte]]'' in Italian. The palace's wall decorations in [[fresco]] and delicate [[stucco]] were a revelation.