Arch of Trajan Ancona: A Roman Triumph Monument at Ancona’s Harbor
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.5
- Popularity
- Medium
- Country
- Italy
- Primary era
- Classical
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Classical, Modern
- Civilizations
- Papal States, Roman
- Site type
- Civic
- Remains
- Arch
On this page10 sections
History
The Arch of Trajan Ancona is a Roman triumphal arch in Italy, probably begun around AD 100 during the reign of Emperor Trajan and completed in the early second century. Erected by the Senate and people of Rome, it honored Trajan after he expanded Ancona’s harbor at his own expense, improved its docks and defenses, and made access to Italy safer for navigators. The monument is one of the best-preserved triumphal arches of its period.
Construction under Trajan
The exact building sequence remains uncertain. The central inscription appears to indicate completion in AD 117, the final year of Trajan’s reign, while the arch is already shown on Trajan’s Column in a scene dated to AD 105. A later interpretation proposes that the arch was constructed around AD 100 with three statues facing the sea and dedicated in AD 114–115, when statues of Trajan, his wife Plotina, and his sister Ulpia Marciana were added on the landward side and the inscription was altered or replaced.
The monument stood on the harbor mole built under Trajan in the first century. Trajan ruled the Roman Empire from AD 98 to 117, a period marked by extensive public construction and military campaigns. The Dacians, an ancient people living north of the lower Danube, fought major wars against Rome during his reign. Trajan’s Column shows the emperor addressing troops preparing to leave Ancona for the second campaign against the Dacians, which ultimately succeeded. The arch’s harbor position and imagery therefore connected it with both navigation and the movement from sea to land.
Apollodorus of Damascus, a Greek-speaking architect from Roman Syria who worked for Trajan, is traditionally or probably credited with designing the arch. Its position on the mole gave the monument a role within the harbor as well as within the city’s ceremonial landscape. The surrounding structure of the mole was examined in 1936, when the archaeologist E. Galli identified foundations of comparable construction extending toward the mainland and Porta Clementina. These discoveries supported the attribution of the harbor works to Trajan.
Medieval damage and antiquarian interest
During the Saracen incursion of 848, the arch was stripped of its bronze letters, statues, rostra, gilding, and friezes. The bronze rostra were projecting ship’s beaks used as architectural symbols of naval power. Their removal altered the monument’s appearance, although the inscriptions can still be read through the traces left on the marble.
Around 950, the Gamba Tower was built near the shipyard behind the arch. It was demolished around 1532, and its materials were reused in Ancona’s Citadel. Medieval urban walls were built against the arch and remained physically attached to it until the nineteenth century. In 1421, scaffolding used for restoration enabled Ciriaco Pizzecolli to examine the monument closely. Its marble and inscriptions helped inspire his archaeological vocation, and the arch’s inscription became the first in a long series that he copied into his books and helped circulate throughout Europe.
Nineteenth- and twentieth-century transformation
In 1847, the engineer Michele Bevilacqua demolished part of the medieval and Renaissance walls around the arch. He replaced them with the neoclassical Barriera Gregoriana, a monumental gateway formed by a four-column entrance flanked by two small Doric temples. The barrier created a visual filter between the harbor and the urban area. Work in the surrounding area was completed in 1859, when the section of wall directly attached to the arch was demolished and rebuilt several meters to the north, and a staircase was constructed. A protective gate was installed about a year later.
Military demands during the First World War contributed to the deterioration of the surrounding area, where a large barracks was built beside the monument. The arch itself was protected with covering and protective cladding. During the interwar period, the area became known as the Trajanic Zone. Railway tracks serving the port crossed Piazza San Primiano, while a wall cut diagonally across the square. The cultural association Accolta dei Trenta – Brigata Amici dell’Arte and the architect Eusebio Petetti developed a plan to reconcile the arch, the Barriera Gregoriana, the seventeenth-century Church of San Primiano, and the railway tracks.
A later municipal project demolished the Barriera Gregoriana and replaced it with a military building in the square. Campaigning by the association helped secure the removal of the barracks beside the arch and the landscaping of the area next to the staircase. Bombing during the Second World War spared the arch but destroyed much of the surrounding urban fabric, especially Piazza San Primiano, while the adjacent green area survived.
After the war, infilling for the enlargement of the port quays and shipyards progressively separated the arch from the sea. This weakened the historical relationship between the monument and the water. In 2000, the arch was restored, its nineteenth-century gate was removed, and lighting was installed to emphasize its profile and its relationship with Ancona’s historic center and Guasco Hill. The monument remains an important architectural symbol of Ancona and of the city’s ancient role as a gateway to the East.
Remains
Form and marble construction
The surviving monument is a single-opening arch about 18 to 18.5 metres high, with a passage approximately 3 metres wide. It rises on a high podium approached by a broad staircase. Its unusually slender proportions distinguish its tall profile from many other Roman arches. The overall arrangement resembles the Arch of Titus in Rome, although the Ancona arch was made taller.
White Proconnesian marble, quarried on Marmara Island in the Sea of Marmara, forms the structure. Each principal facade is flanked by two pairs of fluted Corinthian columns. Corinthian columns are an ornate classical order with ridged shafts and capitals decorated with acanthus leaves. The columns stand on pedestals and frame the central opening, giving the arch a strongly vertical composition.
Attic inscriptions and statues
The upper attic carried three inscriptions made with bronze letters. The central text honored Trajan as emperor, chief priest, holder of tribunician power, nine-time emperor, consul, and father of his country. It praised him as a provident ruler who had provided safer access to Italy at his own expense. The side inscriptions honored Plotina and Ulpia Marciana, Trajan’s wife and sister. Both women held the honorific title Augusta.
Six bronze statues, possibly gilded, originally stood on the attic. Neptune, Mercury, and Portunus faced the sea. Neptune represented the sea, Portunus was associated with harbors, and Mercury with travelers. Trajan, Plotina, and Marciana faced the mainland. Surviving fixing holes support the traditional identification of this landward group, although a recent interpretation proposes that Trajan’s statue stood rather than appearing on horseback. Trajan’s Column also represents the maritime group. Reconstructive models of the arch are held by the National Archaeological Museum of the Marche and the Museum of Roman Civilization in Rome.
Rostra and keystone imagery
Fourteen rostra decorated the arch, with four on each principal facade and three on each side. Their attachment points remain visible in the marble. These projecting ship’s beaks referred directly to Roman naval power and reinforced the monument’s connection with the harbor.
The two keystones, the central wedge-shaped blocks at the crowns of the arch openings, carry busts representing Tellus and Oceanus. The Oceanus bust remains well preserved, while the Tellus bust is heavily eroded. Together, the figures expressed the passage between land and sea that shaped the arch’s position and decoration.
Foundations and harbor setting
Excavation beneath and around the monument in 1936 exposed an octagonal foundation approximately 1.5 metres deep. It consists of seven courses of squared Monte Conero limestone blocks bonded with pozzolana, a volcanic material used in Roman construction. Natural rock outcrops lay beneath the foundation and were levelled with pozzolana to create a regular bearing surface.
The arch stands on the harbor mole, although later port infilling has left it farther from the water than it originally stood. Comparable structures occur along the surrounding mole toward the mainland and Porta Clementina. The former position of the Gamba Tower behind the arch, near part of the shipyards, and the earlier attachment of medieval urban walls illustrate how the monument was incorporated into changing harbor and city structures.
Damage and artistic representations
Several later impact lesions mark the marble. A conspicuous circular mark above the arch, near the side of the red lantern and to the left of a stone bust, has been tentatively attributed to a round-shot cannonball from either 1849 or 1860. Other marks occur on both sides and may have resulted from fragments associated with other military events.
The arch has also been represented in paintings, frescoes, prints, and city views. Examples include Vittore Carpaccio’s The Sermon of Saint Stephen from 1514, Antonio Danti’s View of the City and Port of Ancona from 1580–1583, Andrea Lilli’s View of Ancona from the Sea from 1597, Domenichino’s Arch of Trajan from 1607–1610, and Giovanni Battista Piranesi’s engraved Arch of Trajan from 1748. Later depictions include Jakob Philipp Hackert’s View of the Port of Ancona with the Arch of Trajan, painted about 1780, Francesco Podesti’s The Oath of the Anconitans from 1844–1847, and Christian Peter Wilhelm Stolle’s Arch of Trajan at Ancona from 1873. The monument also appears in works associated with Antonio Balestra, Giuseppe Pallavicini, Gerolamo Gambarato, and Pinturicchio.
Nearby sites
