This arch, built as an honorific monument, honored Titus posthumously and was a project executed by his younger brother and imperial successor, Domitian (emperor, 81-96 C.E.). Many triumphal parades had passed along this route for many centuries, thus the choice to place a permanent triumphal monument astride the route was not accidental but, rather, deliberately evocative of the fact that the triumph as a ritual both created and reinforced collective memory for Romans. Furthemore, the Arch of Titus commands a key point along the triumphal route ( via Triumphalis)-one that visually links the valley of the Flavian amphitheater (known to us as the Colosseum) to the valley of the Forum Romanum and the Capitoline Hill beyond. Between 19, the street level lowered to reveal the foundations.The Arch of Titus is located in Summa Sacra Via, the highest point of the Sacra Via, Rome’s “Sacred Way” that served as its main processional street. The latter restored it by repairing the parts worn by time with travertine, as the inscription on the attic facing the Roman Forum recalls. Between 18, the Arch of Titus was dismantled to a design by Raffaele Stern and Giuseppe Valadier. The arch, later incorporated into the convent of Santa Francesca Romana, the ancient Santa Maria Nova, was restored in 1716 during the pontificate of Clement XII. The first restoration saw the demolition of the medieval buildings that trapped it and the construction of a buttress. Precisely because of the the candelabrum, the arch was called the "Portico delle Sette Lucerne" in the Middle Ages.Īt that time, it was incorporated into the fortress of the Frangipanes, a powerful Roman family, and surmounted with brick battlements.ĭuring their pontificate, Paul II and Sixtus IV undertook the first restoration works, which, over the centuries, led the arch to take on its present appearance. In one, the sovereign is in the imperial quadriga driven by the goddess Roma and crowned by the winged Victory behind him in the other, the soldiers carry the spoils of war: the silver trumpets, the table of the Ark of the Covenant, and the Menorah, the seven-branched candlestick. Two large relief panels - 2.04 meters high by 3.85 meters long - decorate the inside of the arch, illustrating the central moments of Titus's triumph. In the keystones, however, the personifications of the Goddess Rome and the Genius of the Roman people are depicted. Outside, the small continuous frieze placed under the attic represents the triumphal procession and overlooks the two winged Victories in the archivolts. In the center of the beautiful coffered vault is a relief showing the apotheosis of Titus on an eagle ascending to the sky to be welcomed into the Gods' world. Covered in Greek Pentelic marble and finely decorated, it has a single arch it is smaller and more modest than the Arch of Constantine and that of Septimius Severus, but its history is just as impressive. Located at the top of the Via Sacra, inside the Roman Forum and a few steps from the Colosseum, one of the world's most visited tourist destinations, the arch has a height of 15.40 meters, a width of 13.50 meters and a depth of 4.75. «SENATUS POPULUSQUE ROMANUS DIVO TITO DIVI VESPASIANI F(ILIO) VESPASIANO AUGUSTO,» or, «The Senate and the Roman people to the divine Titus, son of the divine Vespasian, Vespasian Augustus.»įacing the Flavian Amphitheater, the dedication carved on the attic of the Arch of Titus, the triumphal monument built in his memory by his brother Domitian, the last emperor of the Flavian dynasty, celebrates his success in Galilee in 70 AD.
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