[2] It stood between the Pantheon and the Stadium of Domitian and were listed among the most notable buildings in the city by Roman authors[3] and became a much-frequented venue.

[9] Its appearance is known from Renaissance drawings made by Palladio and Antonio da Sangallo the Younger and may substantially represent the design as it was the time of Nero.

South of these a tepidarium flanked by two rooms that may have been sudatoria or laconica (steam rooms) led finally to the southern, hottest end of the complex, where the caldarium stood projecting from the walls on either side, receiving the most sunlight and surrounded by praefurnia or propignea (chambers leading to the furnaces heating the whole thermae).

An account stated that forests had been officially designated as sources for its heating fuel and that special taxes were imposed for its maintenance.

[13] A monumental monolithic grey granite basin, a labrum, was removed from the site of the baths to the Villa Medici and was in the late eighteenth century moved to Florence.

This capital, carved in relief with scenes of athletic triumph and the wreathing of the victor, was used as the base for the ancient Roman bronze fountain called Fontana della Pigna when it was moved to its present position in the exhedra of the Vatican's Cortile del Belvedere in 1608.

In the late 1980s, building work on the erstwhile Medici residence the Palazzo Madama, now seat of the Italian Senate, brought to light another monumental stone basin – round and of bichromatic black-red Egyptian granite.

The basin, which probably stood in the caldarium for hot-water bathing, was restored (it had broken in three places) and was donated by the president of the Senate Giovanni Spadolini to the citizenry of Rome with a public ceremony.