Rome's biggest statue: colossal Constantine

[Music] finally we explore the Colossal Constantine now in Rome 13 M High incredible history okay so here we are here is the possibly final location for the Colossus of Constantine it came from Milan it was in the show about recycle Beauty which was absolutely fantastic and I've taken you there now here it is in the location of the garden of the Kine museums why here well because one theory is that this figure of Constantine is a reused figure quite possibly from the cult statue of Jupiter Optimus Maximus on the capitaline hill and where are we right now we're on the capital line hill on top of the remains the foundations of the Jupiter Optimus Maximus Temple last rebuilt by demission and of course you can see some of the foundations of the Regal period Temple inside the capital museums so this is giving you a phenomenal opportunity to come to explore the history of these museums but now also to engage in this reconstruction why is it so important to come to the capital Lon museums today because you have the original pieces of the Colossal statue of Constantine in the courtyard in the Palace of the conservators and now here they've got perfect copies of those fragments and with factum Arte you have this impressive reconstruction an idea of what it was originally faum Arte has reconstructed the model using 10 original pieces that are in Rome that were found in the Basilica mentes in 1486 and here they are we can take a look at them one by one and every piece is made of the same peran marble first we have the shin and we can see the slots for the structure which would have been inserted into it here is the KNE at least one of them again we see a huge slot for the structure that would have been made of brick or wood or metal here's the grand right forearm with a slot we can admire this veining on the arms here is the left forearm as thus identified we have the left foot two pieces this is one of the standout features of the entire statue we see it from two different angles and this is the left fo foot here we have the right foot less well preserved but we can meire it from different angles and see behind it that there is a slot again for inserting the superstructure we have the right hand with the restoration dating to the Renaissance times giving us a straight index figure but through study of the actual hand the archaeologists have reconstructed it as a bent figure that would have been curved around a scepter finally we have this 10th piece it's not been integrated into the model it does belong to the rest of the statue but we don't know where it was originally placed this video today is sponsored by surf shark VPN now a VPN is a virtual private Network it keeps you safe it keeps you private and it masks everything you do online that's important for me as I travel through the Roman Empire I mean let's face it I could be anywhere in the Mediterranean this is going to do the job and even when I'm home I can still travel virtually because I have to 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not recarved but it definitely looks like he's had a shave so then you lead to the theory that this was originally a colossal statue of a bearded Emperor like hadrien another theory a prevalent Theory today is quite possibly it was a bearded God instead of an emperor leading you to that theory that this was actually the reused cold statue of Jupiter Optimus Maximus himself but what we have here is a celebration is a Triumph of Art and Technology factum Arte on their side with a philological study with the experts with the superintendent of Rome working together to understand how to Envision the original cult statue this is an acryic cult statue which means that the exposed body parts are made of marble but the superstructure would have been brick it would have been wood and rods of metal and ultimately the 10th piece that was recently identified by the superintendency discovered in 1951 in the warehouses in the stor rooms of the Coliseum has now been attributed to this statue which then lends uh gives support to the idea that it was a barechested colossal statue because you have one fragment of the chest with a nipple so this is a great discovery and that piece still not on display to the public it should be brought to the capital L museums to be on permanent display let's hope so but the new identification of this piece supports the theory that this was a bare chested Olympic like figure that we see in the temple of Jupiter office Maximus itself a copy or reflecting the original Olympian Zeus in Olympia by fidus so you have together a Triumph of technology and study by our historians and archaeologists to put together to reassemble and give the public a reason to get hungry and curious about the ancient world to be curious and learn more about ancient Rome by coming here to enjoy this colossal stat statue let's take a look at the Statue again now we know the statues of antiquity were painted but we don't have any traced elements of the paint on the original pieces so it's been left unpainted but we can clearly see then a distinction between the perfect scan of the real pieces with the invented portions of the body now we have some scarly interpretations of this statue that his finger curled around and held some sort of scepter in the right arm and on the left he was holding a sphere that's based upon other models that we have we said before now what about the drapery here they have a nice gilded bronze effect that's one interpretation it could have been said been covered with cloth rather than uh panels of of gilding we just don't really know so what we see in the end is an ideal is is an interpretation and again color has not been added because because that would be taking it one step further away than from what we really know it looked like so this is an astute interpretation this is a scholarly Vision in the use of Technology applied to give us that feeling of scale to give us a feeling of what a colossal statue was like and in the end the reality is we can always come back to the original pieces in the same Museum that's the really magnificent thing about this experience now that the Colossal statue reconstructed is here in the capital ey museums everyone should check this out thanks for watching thanks for being part of Darius Arya digs see you soon