Large Ludovian battle sarcophagus
The Great Ludovisian Battle Sarcophagus is a Roman sarcophagus made of Prokonnesian marble from the third century AD. It is 1.53 meters high, 2.73 meters wide and 1.37 meters deep. It consists of two parts: the box is the property of the Museo Nazionale Romano in the Palazzo Altemps in Rome, the lid is in the Roman-Germanic Central Museum in Mainz .
history
The sarcophagus was discovered in 1621 in the Vigna Bernusconi at Porta Tiburtina , which suggests that it was once erected outside the city limits in a tomb on Via Tiburtina . It was donated from the chapter of the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore to the collection of antiquities of the art-loving Cardinal Ludovico Ludovisi , which is where the name comes from. Since the box and lid were set up in different places in the Villa Ludovisi , the knowledge of the togetherness was soon lost. The box passed into the possession of the Italian state around 1900, the lid ended up in private Austrian hands in an unexplained way. After it entered the Viennese art trade in 1916, Carl von Opel bought it for the Roman-Germanic Central Museum in Mainz. During the Second World War, the lid was damaged there and then restored or supplemented. Gerhart Rodenwaldt already suspected a connection at the beginning of the 20th century. Cultural agreements between Italy and Germany finally made a complementary cast possible for both museums.
description
The representation is comparable to the Portonaccio sarcophagus . A battle scene between Romans and barbarians is depicted on its box front. A direct identification of the "barbarian group" is not possible due to the generalization of these at the time the sarcophagus was made. A victorious general is depicted in the center of the box front. The representation is repeated in a certain way on the cover.
Web links
literature
- Ernst Künzl : A dream of empire: The sarcophagus Ludovisi - tomb of a general of Rome. Schnell & Steiner, Regensburg 2010, ISBN 3-7954-2225-6 .