Column of Marc-Aurèle

The Colonne of Marc-Aurèle is a monument of Rome, set up 176 with 192 to celebrate the victories of the emperor Marc-Aurèle (161 - 180) over the Germains Marcomans and the Sarmates established in the north of the the Danube.

The column, which 29,617 m (100 Roman feet) or 42 m was high with the Piédestal, is still on its site of origin, in the center of the piazza Colonna which owes him her name, in front of the Palais Chigi.

The monument, entirely covered of reliefs carved in the marble, is strongly inspired by the Colonne Trajane.

History

Execution of the column under Convenient

The column was carried out by the emperor Commode, wire of Marc-Aurèle, during his reign (180-192), at the same time as the eight carved panels which decorate today the attic of the Arc of Constantin, but were intended for another monument never carried out.

The column rose in the center of a place, on a high base, near the temple dedicated to Commode, which was to rise about with the site of the Palais Wedekind. The base and the pedestal, which reached more than 10 meters, rested on a 3 meters high platform itself.

The account of the important facts of Marc-Aurèle

The column was designed with the imitation of the Colonne Trajane: as on the latter, the scenes are presented by chronological order. This chronology is remainder somewhat dubious, but it is to be connected in a sure way to the events which have occurred from 168 to 172 (until the victory over the German ones) for the lower part of the spiral, then of 173 and 174 for the upper part.

The emperor is represented many times on these scenes in relief, which one regards as less refined than those of the Trajane Column. The Plebeian style or popularizing started here to supplant the style of court or traditional style.

Restoration under Sixth V (1589)

The base was in the beginning decorated with a series of low-reliefs which were not preserved at the time of the restoration due to the pope Sixte V (Quint Sixth) and concluded in 1589 by Domenico Fontana which then re-used the Marbre S recovered of the Septizodium, whose still important vestiges had just been demolished.

Thus was substituted for the original low-reliefs a dedication with Antonin the Piles completely erroneous:

SIXTVS V BRIDGE MAX

COLVMNAM HANC

COCHLIDEM IMP

ANTONINO DICATAM

MISERE LACERAM

RVINOSAMQ PRIMAE

FORMAE RESTITVIT

A. MDLXXXIX BRIDGE IV

(the pope Sixte Quint made its beauty original to this spiral column dedicated to the emperor Antonin (sic) whereas it was in a very advanced state of ruin, the year 1589 and IVe year of its pontificate.)

Two successive statues

At the top of the column rose a statue of Bronze of Marc-Aurèle, destroyed during the Middle Ages.

Sixte V made place at the top, at the time of the restoration of 1589, the bronze statue of holy Paul, work of Leonardo da Sarzana and Tommaso Della Porta.

Description

Twenty blocks of marble

The column, high of almost 30 meters, is consisted, like that of Trajan, enormous blocks of marble of Carrare superimposed (here, 20 on the whole, or 28), of a diameter of 3,70 Mr. the blocks are hollow so as to form a Staircase spiral of 203 (or 190) steps lit by 56 (or 41) small attic windows and driving at a platform affecting the shape of a doric capital .

A narration in spiral

Around the barrel a plank is organized which forms a band in Spirale of approximately a meter in height, being rolled up twenty times and showing scenes of battles and groups of enemies overcome during the war carried out by the Romans against the Germains Marcomans and the Sarmates which had been established along the the Danube, area subjected to the authority of the emperor.

An account in high reliefs

The model of the Trajane Column is intentionally taken again, but in spite of the will to reach the same tops, the differences are obvious between the monument of Trajan and that of Marc-Aurèle: in the first, they are Bas-relief S with modelled delicate and picturesque, whereas second presents high reliefs much harder and incisive: the Trépan penetrates deeply in the Marbre and perforates barbs, chevelures and Cuirasse S, strongly marking the folds of the fabrics and the features of the faces, as well as the undulations of the rivers.

Frontality and imperial majesty

The account is done more diagrammatic, and the variety of the reasons the repetitivity, quite perceptible replaces in the scenes of walk; the details of the landscape are excavated, the prospects become more conventional. The oblique sights of the troops become front views here: frontality extends even to the faces from the Victoire and the emperor. Whereas Trajan is represented among its soldiers, Marc-Aurèle remains with the variation in more detached plans which want to underline its majesty. He appears of face between his Pompéianus son-in-law, faithful and generous, and another officer, both posing three-quarter, like reverberating the imperial light.

In the scene of adlocutio (speech with the troops), the soldiers all are not gathered on a side, vis-a-vis the sitted emperor of profile, but form here a half-circle below the central figure of the preeminent emperor, represented of face in a diagram which announces that of Christ curiously surrounded by her apostles.

The direction of humanity and piety towards the overcome enemies which showed through in the scenes of the Trajane column, disappears here, with the profit of an account of war cruel and pitiless. The bodies of the barbarians are contorsionnent in rates/rhythms angular and deformed, the diagram naturalist is disorganized and become strongly expressionnist.

A miraculous rain

The narration is done more dramatic and is surprised to call upon marvellous in the streaming representation of a dispenser Jupiter of rain (scene 16: the " rain miraculeuse") who saves the Roman army encircled by the Quade S, at the moment when it was going to die of thirst. The episode is also reported by Dion Cassius and other Christian authors of the time, like Tertullien.

These characters stylistics are found on the eight panels auréliens of the Arc of Constantin where, for example, the scene of sacrifice is held in the presence of a very many and dense crowd, compared to a similar scene of the Trajane column.

Emergence of the style " plébéien"

The style of the column of Marc-Aurèle does not want to break with the tradition, but after a fashion tries to conform to it. For all to say, these differences between the two large spiral columns are the testimony of the propensity of art popularizing (" plébéien"), which had always been quite alive in the craft industry, to diffuse itself gradually in the official art, as from the time of Convenient.

Nevertheless, the reliefs of the Column Antonine and those of the panels auréliens of the Arc of Constantin are still the work of high level Masters trained under the reign of the emperors of the dynasty antonine, in workshops where worked of the immigrant Greek sculptors.

We thus see emerging, as from the time of Commode, this tendency to expressive disorganization which was clean figurative culture Etruscan, Latin and Italic and which, in the official art, had been hitherto attenuated and anoblie by the classicisant naturalism.

Notes references

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