Page 119 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Rome

PIAZZA DELLA RO T OND A  117

d Column of spiral staircase leads to the top.
Marcus Aurelius The easiest way to appreciate
the sculptural work, however, is
Piazza Colonna. Map 5 A3 & 12 E2.
@ 116 and routes along Via del Corso to visit the Museo della Civiltà
or to Piazza S. Silvestro. Romana at EUR (see p268) and
study the casts of the reliefs.
Clearly an imitation of the
column of Trajan (see p92), this
monument was erected after
the death of Marcus Aurelius in
AD 180 to commemorate his
victories over the barbarian
tribes of the Danube. The
80-year lapse between the two
works produced a great artistic
change: the wars of Marcus
Aurelius are rendered with
simplified pictures in stronger
relief, sacrificing Classical
proportions for the sake of
clarity and immediacy. The Windows of Palazzo Capranica
Emperor Augustus’s obelisk spirit of the work is more akin
to the 4th-century Arch of f Palazzo
s Obelisk of Constantine (see p93) than to Capranica
Montecitorio Trajan’s monument. Gone are
the heroic qualities of the Piazza Capranica 101. Map 4 F3 &
Piazza di Monte Citorio 33. Map 4 F3 & Roman soldiers, by now mostly 12 D2. @ 116 and routes along
12 E2. @ 116 and routes along Via del barbarian mercenaries, and a Via del Corso or to Piazza S. Silvestro.
Corso or to Piazza S. Silvestro. sense of respect for the Closed to the public.
vanquished. A new emphasis One of Rome’s small number of
The measurement of time in on the supernatural points to surviving 15th-century buildings,
ancient Rome was always a the end of the Hellenistic the palazzo was commissioned
rather hit-or-miss affair: for tradition and the beginning by Cardinal Domenico Capranica
many years the Romans relied of Christianity. both as his family residence and
on an imported (and therefore Composed of 28 drums as a college for higher education.
inaccurate) sundial, a trophy of marble, the column was Its fortress-like appearance is a
from the conquest of Sicily. In restored in 1588 by Domenico patchwork of subsequent addi-
10 BC the Emperor Augustus Fontana on the orders of Pope tions, not unusual in the late 15th
laid out an enormous sundial in Sixtus V. The emperor’s statue century, when Rome was still
the Campus Martius. Its center on the summit was replaced hovering between medieval and
was roughly in today’s Piazza by a bronze of St. Paul. The 20 Renaissance taste. The Gothic-
di San Lorenzo in Lucina. The spirals of the low relief chronicle looking windows on the right of
shadow was cast by a huge the German war of AD 172–3, the building show the cardinal’s
granite obelisk that Augustus and (above) the Sarmatic War of coat of arms and the date 1451
brought back from Heliopolis AD 174–5. The column is almost is inscribed on the doorway
in Egypt. Unfortun ately, this 100 ft (30 m) high and 12 ft underneath. The palazzo now
sundial too became inaccurate (3.7 m) in diameter. An internal houses a conference center.
after only 50 years, possibly due
to settling of the ground.
The obelisk was still in the
piazza in the 9th century, but
then disappeared until it was
rediscovered lying under medi-
eval houses in the reign of Pope
Julius II (1503–13). The pope
was intrigued, because Egyptian
hieroglyphs were thought to
hold the key to the wisdom of
Adam before the Fall, but it was
only under Pope Benedict XIV
(reigned 1740–58) that the
obelisk was finally unearthed.
It was erected in its present
location in 1792 by Pope Pius VI. Relief of the emperor’s campaigns on the Column of Marcus Aurelius

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