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Arch of Janus

Ancient Roman triumphal arches in RomeBuildings and structures completed in the 4th centuryRome R. XII Ripa
Arch of Janus
Arch of Janus

The Arch of Janus is the only quadrifrons triumphal arch preserved in Rome. It was set up at a crossroads at the northeastern limit of the Forum Boarium, close to the Velabrum, over the Cloaca Maxima drain that went from the Forum to the River Tiber. It was built in the early 4th century CE, using spolia, i.e. material from earlier buildings, including bricks, together with pottery shards, and was covered with white marble, also from earlier buildings. The exact significance of the arch is poorly understood: it is thought to have been a boundary marker rather than a triumphal arch. An alternative view is that it was built to provide shelter for the traders at the Forum Boarium cattle market. Some researchers believe it was dedicated to Constantine I or Constantius II and was known as the Arch of the deified Constantine. It is 16 meters high and 12 meters wide. Each pier of the arch has two rows of three niches. It seems logical that statues would have filled these 48 niches but none has been identified. The stone at the apex of the central arch on the north side is thought to depict Minerva, although others believe it may be Palladium. Its current name probably dates from the Renaissance or later, and was not used to describe it in classical antiquity. The name is derived from the structure's four-fronted, four-arched configuration. The ancient Roman god Janus (Ianus Quadrifons), was sometimes depicted with four faces and there are Janus-related structures mentioned in historic descriptions of ancient Rome. In the Middle Ages, the Frangipane family transformed the building into a fortress, and so it survived intact until 1830. Then, the attic and top were torn down because they were erroneously believed to not belong to the original structure. However, there is a staircase within the north-west pier which would have given access to this top floor. Iron pins originally held together the marble blocks but were removed in the Middle Ages, leading to the monument's present pock-marked look. Fragments of the dedicatory inscription are still preserved inside the nearby church of San Giorgio in Velabro. The arch has not been accessible to the public since the explosion of a bomb in front of San Giorgio in Velabro, on the night of 27 July 1993. It is the one monument of the Forum Boarium that remains unrestored. The Arch of Malborghetto, just outside Rome, also includes the remnants of a former Roman quadrifons arch.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Arch of Janus (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Arch of Janus
Via del Velabro, Rome Municipio Roma I

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Latitude Longitude
N 41.889444444444 ° E 12.482777777778 °
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Address

Arco di Giano

Via del Velabro
00153 Rome, Municipio Roma I
Lazio, Italy
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Arch of Janus
Arch of Janus
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Fountain of the Tritons
Fountain of the Tritons

The Fountain of the Tritons (Italian: Fontana dei Tritoni) is a fountain in Rome (Italy), Piazza Bocca della Verità, in front of the basilica of Santa Maria in Cosmedin. This fountain should be distinguished from the similarly named nearby Triton Fountain (Fontana del Tritone) by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, in the Piazza Barberini, with only a single Triton. The building, starting from 1610, of the last Roman aqueduct, the Acqua Paola, didn't move to the background the two aqueducts built just a few years before (the Aqua Virgo in 1570 and the Acqua Felice in 1587), which gave the possibility to erect new fountains on the branches that guaranteed a more widespread distribution of water in the whole town. A secondary branch of the Acqua Felice reached the area south of the Tiber Island: here, between ancient and middle-age monuments (the Arcus Argentariorum, the Arch of Janus, the Temple of Hercules Victor, the Temple of Portunus and the basilica of Santa Maria in Cosmedin) Pope Clement XI ordered the construction of a monument in his own memory. It is not so clear indeed why the pontiff chose to erect a fountain in an area that was scarcely inhabited, broken-grounded and subject to the floods of river Tiber. In fact, its fulfillment raised many criticisms for the location believed to be unhappy. The fountain was completed in 1715 by architect Carlo Francesco Bizzaccheri, during the works for the accommodation of the square in front of the basilica. The whole travertine structure is placed on a circular step (delimited by 16 little columns joined by a grating), within which the design of the main basin represents an octagon with concave sides, or rather the eight-tips star that was the heraldic symbol of the family of the Pope, the Albanis). In the centre there is a group of rocks (an element that had become popular after the success of the fontana dei Quattro Fiumi) with bushes on which two Tritons (due to Francesco Moratti) are knelt with clinged tails and raised arms, sustaining on their shoulders a big oyster shell serving as upper basin. Between the two Tritons there is the coat of arms of the pontiff. Four mascarons formerly dumped water into the main basin; they were removed in the 19th century, probably due to the scarcity of the incoming water, that could have left them dry. In fact the fountain has been without water for a long time, but the hydric provision, though quite scarce, has been restored. The last restorations date back to 1994-1995 and 2010.