After months of work and years of waiting, the Column of Marcus Aurelius has finally freed itself from the scaffolding and the layer of gray that suffocated it. The restoration, now in its final stages, has restored legibility to one of the most powerful monuments of imperial Rome, in front of Palazzo Chigi in the center of the city.
Looking at it today is a different experience. The scenes carved in marble are no longer a distant, blurred narrative: the wars against Germans and Sarmatians, with all their burden of violence, return sharply. Desperate faces, pierced bodies, villages set on fire. There is no sweetening: imperial propaganda celebrated victory but did not erase the ferocity of conquest. And perhaps that is what makes the column surprisingly relevant today.
The credit is also due to technology. The use of lasers was chosen for the cleaning, an expensive but extremely material-friendly technique that allowed the removal of black crusts and deposits without affecting the Carrara marble. A surgical job, necessary on a monument almost 30 meters high, composed of 18 rocks and exposed to rain, wind and, more recently, smog for almost two thousand years.
Details resurface
Ascending ideally along the frieze, details that time had erased re-emerge: the diverse armor of the soldiers, the boats plying the Danube, the chariots loaded with weapons. At the bottom, symbolic scenes stand out again, such as the personification of the river and the famous “miracle of rain,” with divine intervention reversing the fortunes of the battle. In the center, unfailingly, is the winged Victory. It is history, it is art, but it is also a political message etched in stone.
The restoration, financed with Pnrr funds and started in spring 2025, was not limited to cleaning. It has included consolidations, securing the parts at risk, disinfestation of mosses and lichens, and work inside the column as well. Within a few weeks the scaffolding will be completely gone; then it will be the turn of the new lighting to enhance the monument, with final completion of the work expected in the spring.
The doubt about the color
There is one last striking detail: today the column appears white, slightly pinkish, but originally it was colored. The pigments have not been found, and the color remains a fascinating hypothesis rather than a certainty. Small wonder. Even without dyes, the narrative etched in the marble has returned legible and powerful.
Rome, for once, does not just preserve: it manages to let its past speak for itself. And what Marcus Aurelius’ column tells, without rhetoric or discount, is that war – yesterday as today – always leaves deep marks.
