The Colossus of Constantine was assembled from copies of surviving fragments and was completed using 3D modeling of the unpreserved part

As of Tuesday, visitors to the Capitoline Museums can see a life-size reconstruction of the largest known ancient statue, the Colossus of Constantine (4th century AD). The 13-meter statue was “assembled” from copies of surviving fragments and a non-surviving part, thought up using 3D modeling. Kommersant’s art columnist says Kira Dolinina.

This news could have been considered a museum attraction (3D technologies and artificial intelligence have caused an understandable boom among those wishing to reconstruct something lost), if not for the gigantic size of Constantine now sitting in the gardens of Villa Caffarelli on the Capitoline Hill. Almost 13 m (more precisely, 12.7 m), a two-meter head, a huge bronze ball (orb) in the left hand, a rod in the right. The luxurious “bronze” folds of the robe, the powerful “marble” chest, and the size of the foot turn the person standing next to her, if not into an ant, then into a spider. A colossus is a colossus – its purpose is to rise, to cover the sky, to put pressure on an insignificant man and his insignificant thoughts.

The “life size” of the fragmentarily preserved monument of late Roman sculpture has been calculated, recalculated, and verified many times by scientists and technicians. This was a problem, because the Colossus of Constantine, discovered in the Basilica of Maxentius near the Colosseum in the 15th century, has reached us in only nine fragments: head, right arm with elbow, right wrist, right palm, right knee, left shin, left knee, right and left foot. All the marble and bronze parts of the statue were removed and melted down by the barbarians even before the discovery. Based on these data, much larger fragments, the pose itself, and the degree of nudity of the figure were reconstructed. Other similar “seated” figures from similar periods were used as models for reconstruction, primarily the statue of Jupiter (late 1st century AD; 3.47 m) from the collection of the State Hermitage in St. Petersburg and a slightly smaller plaster copy of the statue of Emperor Claudius in the image of Jupiter from the Ara Pacis Museum in Rome (also 1st century AD).

The main drivers of the process were German scientists from The Factum Foundation for Digital Technology in Preservation. The colossus was recreated for an exhibition at Milan’s Fondazione Prada in 2022. The exhibition was called Recycling Beauty, and its main theme was the study of how certain objects have been “repurposed” over the centuries. The colossus was needed here not only for a stunning accent, but also as proof of the thesis that the original was a reworking of an earlier pagan statue – Constantine probably grew out of Jupiter here. Likening a mortal ruler to a god is a common thing, but on such a scale the impact on the people is greater.

The result was something very significant in form and content. The Colossus of Constantine now sits in front of a Roman villa: an emperor with a stone face in every sense, a large family nose, a powerful physique, in a bronze cloak that flows in classical folds from his left shoulder. Everything seems to be very impressive and should inspire confidence in the accuracy of the reconstruction. But then, of course, critics appeared: most of all they were criticized for the supposed ratio of marble and other materials from which the original statue was made. The fact is that that Colossus was an acrolith, a sculpture that combined various techniques. As a rule, the head (or only its front part) and naked parts of the body were marble, and the rest (primarily the robe, often hair, a laurel wreath, symbolic objects in the hands) was made of bronze-coated wood. Since it is unknown exactly how much of Constantine’s body was exposed, the number of “marble” parts in the reconstruction is determined very loosely. But based on the size of the Colossus, the abundance of “marble” shown today on the Capitol really looks like an exaggeration, if only because of the weight, which in this situation would require an extremely significant base. But nothing similar to such a basis was found.

The question of whether this was the case in the past or not accompanies almost any reconstruction. Now the Metropolitan Museum of Art is even hosting an exhibition of ancient sculptures in color, and by 2030 the Italians are threatening to restore the 30-meter-tall Colossus of Nero in front of the Colosseum, of which not a single fragment remains, except for written evidence and part of the pedestal. Sometimes projects are well-founded scientifically, others are more like utopias. To believe or not to believe is a personal matter. But the fact that someone at least tried it will certainly not make anyone worse. The only pity is that of the two right hands found, the reconstructors chose the one that holds a staff, and not the more famous one, with the index finger raised. But this seems to be historically more accurate.