The ancient grandeur of Rome re-emerges with the copy of a colossus

It may not be authentic, exactly, or very old.

But the colossal statue of a fourth-century emperor, Constantine the Greatit is a newly erected monument to Rome: a tribute to the grandeur of the ancient city and its infinite capacity to remake itself.

In this case, the rThe construction was literal.

The 13-meter seated statue, which towers over visitors, was carefully reconstructed by Foundation of factsa Madrid-based digital art group, from the 10 known fragments of the original sculpture.

The reconstructed statue was installed this week in a garden of Capitoline Museums of Rome, near where the Temple of Jupiter was located, the most important of ancient Rome.

“To see Constantine, at the top of the Capitoline Hill, overlooking all of Rome, is extraordinary to me,” said Adam Lowe, founder of the Factum Foundation, which originally created the statue for a 2022 exhibition at the Capitoline Hill. Prada Foundation from Milan.

The head and most other fragments of the colossal statue were discovered in 1486, in the ruins of a building not far from the Colosseum.

They moved into what would eventually become the Capitoline Collection, and nine of these ancient fragments – including a monumental head, feet and hand – are permanently on display in museums.

The fragments achieved fame from the moment they were excavated, said Salvatore Settis, an archaeologist and one of the curators of the Prada exhibition.

“They have been engraved by prominent artists since the 15th century,” he says, adding that the sculpture has also attracted the attention of more modern artists such as Roberto Rauschenberg, who photographed the pieces in the 1950s.

Five hundred years and many more technological advances later, a team from the Factum Foundation dedicated three days to using photogrammetry, a 3D scanner with a camera, to film the fragments in the Capitol courtyard.

Processes

Over the course of several months, the high-resolution data was converted into 3D prints, which they were used to mold replicasmade of acrylic resin and marble powder.

They were then integrated with other body parts – those missing from Constantine – which were constructed after historical research and interviews with conservators and experts.

A statue of Emperor Claudius as the god Jupiter, currently on the ancient Roman altar known as Ara Pacis, It served as a model for posing and drapery, originally made of bronze.

“Thanks to the evidence collected from those fragments, working as forensic scientists, with all the experts from different disciplines, we were able to reconstruct something that is absolutely impressive,” Lowe said, adding that new technologies offer museums new avenues to research and dissemination. .

“We’re not trying to build a fake thing,” he added.

“We try to build something that engages you physically and emotionally and that stimulates you intellectually.”

Recent studies on the statue suggest that the statue of Constantine was reworked from an already existing colossus, perhaps representing Jupiter.

According to Claudio Parisi Presicce, superintendent of art of the Municipality of Rome, director of the Capitoline Museums and expert on the colossus, the irrefutable signs of the reworking are present above all in the face of the colossal statue.

Some experts, in fact, are evaluating the hypothesis that the sculpture was originally the cult statue of a temple dedicated to Jupiter – the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus – which would mean that the facsimile of Constantine has finally returned to his homeland.

“We can’t be sure it’s the same statue, but there’s a chance it was,” Settis said.

Constantine, the first emperor to convert to Christianity, may have specifically chosen a statue of Jupiter to turn into an icon of himself.

“This is a hypothesis,” he said.

“It would mark a step in Western Europe, from the pagan empire to the Christian one.”

According to the authorities, the statue will be displayed in the Capitoline Gardens until at least the end of 2025.

Where it will go next, and whether it will withstand the ravages of time better than its fractured original, remain open questions.

But its creators at least tried to make it durable.

“There won’t be anything better out there,” Lowe says.

“We hope so. Of course, there were pigeons perched on his head during the inauguration too. I’m afraid there’s not much that can be done.”

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