Archi di Costantino a Roma
In: Archeologia Classica: 64, 2013
Permalink: http://digital.casalini.it/3123582
The author re-examines the Arch of Constantine in its various aspects: the location, figurative display and dedicatory inscription, but also the ceremonials and rituals recorded as from the triumphal entry into Rome after the victory over Maxentius. Analysing the evidence of various – not unambiguous – sources, the author concludes that a cautious approach should be taken to the alleged early conversion of Constantine and his refusal to ascend the Capitoline Hill for the rites prescribed by tradition and celebration of the triumph over Maxentius. Examination focuses on the three reliefs with the emperor Marcus Aurelius conserved in the Palazzo dei Conservatori, were they were brought from the ancient Church of St. Martina in the Forum, a relief in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptothek in Copenhagen and the eight Aurelian panels reused in the upper part of the Arch of Constantine, confirming the thesis that they had belonged to one single arch, the arcus panis Aurei, albeit created in two successive stages. Reinterpretation of a drawing by Antonio da Sangallo reveals two piers of an arch (with one opening or four-sided) within the facade of the Church of S. Martina, from which also came some fragments of the “great frieze of Trajan” conserved in the Galleria Borghese. The author conjectures that there were two arches of Constantine: one, the more famous, in the vicinity of the Meta Sudans and other monuments re-evoking Augustus, devoid of the triumphal type of figurative, and one in the Forum, the arcus panis Aurei, originally of Marcus Aurelius, adorned with a partially triumphal display, its name relating to the tradition of the congiarium. The possibility that a four-sided arch in Constantinople, the Milion, follows the model of the arcus panis Aurei suggests that it could be reconstructed as a tetrapylon.