Standing between the Colosseum and the Forum, the Arch of Constantine is the largest surviving triumphal arch in Rome and one of the finest in the Roman world. Erected by the Senate in 315 AD to mark the tenth anniversary of Constantine accession and his victory over Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge three years earlier, the arch is more than twenty metres high and almost twenty-six metres wide. The triple-arched form, with a large central bay flanked by two smaller ones, was a Roman standard, but the decoration is unusual. Much of the sculptural work on the arch was taken from earlier monuments of the second-century emperors Trajan, Hadrian and Marcus Aurelius, with the heads recarved to resemble Constantine and his father. This reuse of older sculpture, often interpreted as a sign of declining artistic skill in the late empire, has been reread by modern scholars as a deliberate gesture, linking the new emperor to the great soldier-emperors of the previous century and projecting a sense of continuity with the high empire onto a regime that was, in fact, deeply transformed. The contemporary fourth-century reliefs, by contrast, show the flatter, more rigid style that would characterise late Roman art and pave the way for the Christian iconography of the centuries to come. The two-storey arrangement, with attic statues of Dacian prisoners and roundels of imperial activities, repays slow study. The arch survived in part because it stood beside the Colosseum and within the routes used by medieval and Renaissance Romans, and partly because successive popes and city authorities recognised its historic value, though it has at times come close to ruin through earthquake and weathering. Its position at the head of the Via Triumphalis, the route along which Roman generals processed in their triumphs, and its location now between two of the most visited landmarks in the city, make it one of the most photographed monuments in Rome, though many visitors pass beneath without realising how richly layered its sculptural programme actually is.

Type: Tourist Attraction

Address: Via di San Gregorio, Rome, Italy

Opening Date: 25/07/0315