The Arch of Constantine is the last major pagan monument to have been erected in the city of Rome, and also one of the most controversial. It comes, therefore, as something of a surprise that there has been no monograph in English since Bernard Berenson’s idiosyncratic study The Arch of Constantine or the Decline of Form, published in Reference Berenson1954. Iain Ferris has now filled the gap with a lively and thought-provoking little book that ranges across the spectrum of history, architecture and art, messages and meanings, and viewers’ responses. Chapter 1 recounts Constantine’s life and times; Chapter 2 deals with the Arch’s fabric and form; Chapters 3 and 4 describe the sculptures, concentrating respectively on those reused from earlier monuments and on those produced by contemporary artists. Chapter 5 looks at the artistic and architectural context of the Arch, including the building projects begun by Constantine’s predecessor, Maxentius, and those undertaken by Constantine himself. Chapter 6 explores the significance of the Arch’s decoration, and Chapter 7 – a particularly innovatory and interesting contribution – reviews Renaissance and later depictions of the Arch, plus modern reactions to it (we learn, inter alia, that both Raphael and Vasari anticipated Berenson’s dismissive verdict on the Constantinian sculpture).

It is unfortunate that Ferris admits rather too many minor errors: for example, on p 13 Crispus is said to be the son of Minervina whereas on p 20 his mother is Fausta; on p 26 Pater Augusti is cited in place of Pater Augustorum (‘father of the Augusti’: the coin legend actually reads ‘PATER AVGG’); there are also frequent misspellings, such as ‘cippolino’ for cipollino and ‘Tor Pignatarra’ for Tor Pignattara. It is important that these and other blemishes are eliminated from the second edition that this book richly deserves.

As to the sub-title ‘Inspired by the Divine’ – prompted by the phrase ‘INSTINCTV DIVINITATIS’ in the Arch’s dedicatory inscription – one can question its aptness, because little of the discussion focuses on religious inspiration. A more appropriate sub-title would have been ‘Collage and Memory’ (see Chapter 6), referring to the fundamental debate on the significance of the use of spolia (elements salvaged from earlier buildings). There is no space here, alas, to rehearse this debate in detail. Ferris firmly nails his flag to the prevailing view that the reliefs appropriated from monuments of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius were intended symbolically to align Constantine with the virtues and achievements of those great emperors of the past. But this reviewer is less convinced. The heads of the emperors in these reused reliefs were reworked in the image of Constantine, and it is doubtful how far contemporary viewers would have been sufficiently familiar with the stylistic hallmarks of second-century art to make the link with the earlier period (indeed, as Ferris himself points out, most of the reliefs in question were placed too high for detailed examination). I would also question whether the use of spolia was (as Ferris frequently claims) a practice particularly prevalent in the late antique period. It was probably more common in earlier times than the surviving evidence suggests. Already in the first century ad, the head of Domitian in one of the two Cancelleria reliefs in the Vatican Museum had been re-cut to portray Nerva, no doubt in readiness for its reuse on a new building. There may have been many more examples of this kind of recycling. Rather than looking for symbolic motives, should we not accept that in many cases the use of spolia was stimulated, at least in part, by a desire to save time and costs?