The strong features and the proud look towards the horizon he will build.
The hand on the scepter, the golden cloth falling regal and that bare knee, a sign of devotion.
Imposing and mammoth with its 13 meters of height which, today as then, marked the distance between him and his subjects, the Colossus of Constantine will from today welcome, free of charge, visitors to the garden of Villa Caffarilli, almost a gateway to that chest of treasures that are the Capitoline Museums.
Or at least the very faithful reconstruction, in 1:1 scale, of the colossal statue of the emperor Constantine (4th century AD), among the most significant examples of late ancient Roman sculpture, will do so.
Of the entire statue, rediscovered in the 15th century at the Basilica of Maxentius along the Via Sacra, only nine marble fragments remain, kept in the courtyard of Palazzo dei Conservatori.
Precisely from those, we started for this extraordinary reconstruction, the result of the collaboration between the Capitoline Superintendency, the Prada Foundation and the Factum Foundation for Digital Technology in Preservation, with the scientific supervision of the superintendent Claudio Parisi Presicce.
"An extraordinary work - comments the mayor Roberto Gualtieri - and a true colossus that represents the power of an emperor who triumphed at the Milvian bridge. Now we are trying to understand if the original statue was the Capitoline Jupiter which was located right here or if instead the work was inspired by classical models that dated back to Phidias' Zeus".
Reconstructed in resin and polyurethane, together with marble dust, gold leaf and plaster, the work was presented for the first time in Milan in 2022 in the Recycling beauty exhibition.
"Now it will remain here for the entire Jubilee year - says Parisi Presicce - Then we will see whether to move it to the Museum of Roman Civilisation, which will be reopened".
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