Ara Pacis

The Ara Pacis Augustae (Latin, " Altar of Peace of Augustus " ) is a monument in Rome. It was given in 13 BC by the Roman Senate commissioned and dedicated to the victorious Emperor Augustus.

Architectural History

The Roman Senate dedicated the altar in the year 13 BC the first Roman Emperor Augustus, who had returned to his victories over Spain and Gaul to Rome. The altar in the year 9 BC The altar was finished trying peace and prosperity as a result of the Pax Romana (Latin for "Roman peace " ) display. The Ara Pacis is also the first monument of a public political self-representation of a Roman ruler. Since the Julio- Claudian Dynasty refers to Aeneas, could be invoked to legitimize the claim to power to divine origin, since in mythology was Aeneas son of Anchises and the goddess Venus.

Originally there was the altar on the Via Flaminia (now Via del Corso ) near the present church of San Lorenzo in Lucina in the Campus Martius, and there formed with the Mausoleum of Augustus and the Solarium Augusti a unit. Here, the building was so placed that the shadow of the obelisk tip of the Solarium Augusti to Augustus ' birthday zuwandert over the day exactly on the center of the Ara Pacis.

Located close to the Tiber, the Ara Pacis was afflicted over time of floods and fell - fall, buried under mud and built over later - finally forgotten.

Iconography

The altar is made in detail and fine Carrara marble. The high accuracy is indicative of Greek artists. On the north and south side of the altar you can see scenes according to the traditional Roman piety, the emperor and his family are represented by sacrifice to the gods. Men, women and children approach the gods. Some sacrifice animals, some have considered as traditional gesture of respect for the gods in an animal sacrifice their toga like a hood over his head. Others wear laurel wreaths, the traditional symbol of victory. The altar was used once a year as a holy sacrifice. Side of the entrance one can see the Lupercal, the cave in which the Capitoline she-wolf suckled Romulus and Remus should have.

Allegorical Relief: Tellus between the personifications of air and water

Relief on the north side

Relief on the south side

Relief on the east side

The sacrificial Aeneas

Remnants of the altar

Lion detail on the altar crown

Fund history

In the 16th century it was first discovered during the construction of the Palazzo Peretti individual relief pieces which were soon brought to different places, such as the Villa Medici, Florence and in the Louvre. In the 19th century other parts were then found in 1903 and began systematic excavations. The fascist regime under Benito Mussolini decided in the context of a large, propaganda influenced by their own imperial claims to show two thousandth birthday of the Emperor Augustus, the altar wiederzuerrichten. The required salvage the remains of the altar was then a technical feature to get the Palazzo still above it, this was completely eroded and the area around the altar during the period of excavations by a wall of frozen ground isolated from the environment. The recovered pieces were put together with the already scattered all over the world, in part previous findings and again - where their return was not to enforce - at least supplemented by plaster casts of the originals almost complete altar. This has now received in 1938 his place in a protective pavilion on the bank of the Tiber, just beside the also newly excavated Augustus, both impressed now - with other buildings of the Mussolini - time - the Piazza Augusto Imperatore.

In spring 2006 opened in the same place the Museo dell ' Ara Pacis in a glass building by architects Richard Meier & Partners, is intended to protect the altar now better against overheating and pollution. However, the new building was highly controversial among the inhabitants of Rome. The Mayor Gianni Alemanno threatened during the election campaign for the parliamentary elections in Italy in 2008 to demolish the museum by architect Richard Meier again. These plans were not pursued.

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