MONUMENTA: a new themed section

Monumentum est quod memoriae servandae gratia existat
Justinian, Digestum XI, 7.2.6

The original meaning of the term monumentum is ‘memory’, ‘commemorative sign’ (from moneo in the sense of ‘to remind’).

Engramma’s new section – Monumenta – will publish research relating to buildings, typologies, architectural and figurative works and their relationship with their original context, patrons, and literary and iconographic sources. ‘Monuments’ that at are not just classics in the history of art and architecture, but are also historical indicators, as far as the fortunes of their Nachleben is concerned.
Monumenta – which will submit the results of researches taking place at the Institute of Architecture, Civilisation and the Classical Tradition at the IUAV University in Venice, and will submit various contributions in the form of essays, galleries, iconographic tables, and indexes.
The first results of seminar work published in this issue focus on one of the classical works par excellence, recently displayed in the new museum designed by Richard Meier: the Ara Pacis Augustae.

Gallery

• Straight references to the Ara Pacis Augustae in ancient literary and iconographical sources
• The inscription of the Res Gestae Augusti in Morpurgo's setting of the Ara Pacis (1938)
  Ed. Institute of Architecture, Civilisation and the Classical Tradition.
  The gallery assembles rare classical sources – literary and figurative – that explicitly mention the Ara Pacis Augustae consecrated by Octavian in 13 AD on the Campus Martius. The complete text of Augustus’ Res Gestae, inscribed along the base of the Ara Pacis in 1938, is also published in full.

Essays

• Monica Centanni, Maria Grazia Ciani
  Ara Pacis Augustae: the literary sources
  The essay presents poetic and historiographic evidence that contributes to the restitution of the complex ideological message attributed by Augustus to the ‘power of images’ that can be seen on the Ara pacis.
• Giacomo Calandra di Roccolino
  Ara Pacis: numismatic sources
  Two coins from the age of Nero and Domitian prove to be invaluable in the possible reconstruction of the original appearance of the Ara Pacis.
• Giacomo Dalla Pietà
  Res gestae Augusti and the Ara Pacis
  The essay presents a critical reading of one of the most important sources associated with the politics of Augustus in connection with the building of the Ara Pacis.

News

• Ara Pacis restituta
  Recent editions on the Ara Pacis Augustae
  by engramma