Laocoön and His Sons
The Baths were slowly dismantled over the centuries, as the marble and brick were sold by the monks of San Pietro in Vincoli to stonemasons for re-use and burning into lime for mortar. Large parts still remained standing at the beginning of the sixteenth century, when architects like Andrea Palladio studied the ruins and were able to reconstruct the floorplan. Many works of art were unearthed in the vicinity of the Baths during the Renaissance, including the famous statuary group of Laocoön and His Sons, which was discovered in a hall underneath a vineyard in 1506, near the "Sette sale". The building to which this hall belonged is uncertain, but the "Domus Aurea" and the Baths of Trajan are both possibilities.