Constantine’s colossal statue on display on the Campidoglio
In the fourth century AD, the Roman emperor Constantine commissioned a nearly 43-foot-tall statue of himself for his basilica in the Roman Forum. After his victory over Maxentius in 312 AD, believing that his success was due to the Christian God, Constantine stopped the persecution against the Christians and the following year, with his Edict of Milan legalizing Christianity, he allowed them to practice their religion openly. He also had the first church of Saint Peter’s built in Rome, moved the capital to Byzantium, now Turkey, and called it Constantinople, today Istanbul.
Today, the emperor’s legacy remains, but the statue has crumbled. All that survives are ten incomplete marble fragments of his head, hands and other body parts. The head and most of the other fragments of the colossal statue were discovered in 1486, in the ruins of a building not far from the Colosseum, and relocated to the Palazzo dei Conservatori by Michelangelo when he was working on the Capitoline piazza in 1536–1546. A tenth fragment was found in 1951. Nine of those ancient fragments — including a monumental head, feet and hand — are permanently on show on the courtyard of the Capitoline Museum.
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| Parts of the original statue in the courtyard of the museum |
The original colossus was partly marble for the head, chest and limbs while the hidden structural elements were wood, covered with draped clothing made of bronze. Constantine was shown seated in the style of the more ancient statue of Jupiter in the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus on the Capitoline. It may have even been reworked from that statue of Jupiter. After the Fall of Rome, the statue was looted for the gilded bronze draped around the body and broken up.
It is now possible, with the latest technological advancements, to produce a replica. A team from the Madrid-based digital preservation nonprofit Factum Foundation spent three days using photogrammetry, a 3D scan with a camera, to record the fragments in the Capitoline courtyard. Over the course of several months, the high-resolution data became 3D prints, which were used to cast replicas, made of acrylic resin and marble powder. Those were then integrated with other body parts — the ones Constantine was missing — that were constructed after historical research and discussions with curators and experts. A statue of the emperor Claudius as the god Jupiter, now at the ancient Roman altar known as the Ara Pacis, was used as a model for the pose and draping, which was originally in bronze.
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| The recreated statue |
The full-sized reconstruction of the colossal statue of Constantine that once stood in the Basilica of Maxentius in the Roman Forum has gone on display in the garden of the Villa Caffarelli Garden, just behind the Palazzo dei Conservatori on the Capitoline Hill where the surviving fragments of the original statue are exhibited in the entrance courtyard.
The finished reconstruction is more than 40 feet high. The statue will remain in the Capitoline garden until at least the end of 2025, officials said. Where it will go afterward, and whether it will withstand the ravages of time better than its fractured original, remain open questions.
