"Colossus of Constantine" Topic

Subject: Towering Colossus of Constantine reconstructed in Rome


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Very cool. I formerly showed a video about Roman sculpture to my high school students that showed the head but did not indicate just how huge t was.

I always assumed he a smaller man. 😉

It's like the opening titles to "Spartacus"

I've seen the original head a hand few times in the Capitoline museum but it is hard to visualise what the whole statue would have looked like. Making this reconstruction is a great idea – the sheer bulk is amazing. One thing that puzzles me is that the Right hand I saw in the museum looks different to that in the reconstruction – is it just the angle of view or were there multiple colossi?

Slightly mixed feelings about having a second one near Bishop Aukland though – a lot easier for me to get to but it does remove a new excuse for another trip to Rome :-(

With a bit more reading around, apparently the famous right hand that I'd seen is an extra that Michelangelo found lying around and placed with other surviving fragments.

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Reading Mary Beard's "Pompeii", the reason so many feet, hands and heads are found, is that the bodies of the statues were probably made of wood covered with cloth as clothing.

So the reproduction is not necessarily accurate.