Rome’s Colosseum gets a fresh look that recreates the footprints of long-gone columns

Rome’s Colosseum has a bright new look after a restoration that uses the same travertine marble to recreate parts of its columns.

“Rome’s Colosseum gets a fresh look that recreates the footprints of long-gone columns Rome’s Colosseum gets a fresh look that recreates the footprints of long-gone columns ROME (AP) — The Colosseum has a bright new look following a restoration using the same travertine marble of ancient Rome to recreate parts of columns from 2,000 years ago”

Associated Press

The project focuses on a semicircular piazza outside the arena, where two arcades of marble columns rise up to 50 meters high.

Associated Press

The arches are long gone, having collapsed over the centuries from earthquakes, but tourists will be able to sit on travertine slabs where the columns stood and read reproductions of the Roman numerals indicating seat sections.

Italian architect Stefano Boeri said the blocks are placed exactly where the original pillars were to restore the perception of the arcades’ proportion and the vaults of the arches.

Over time the outside area became filled with detritus, including pieces of ruins, and overgrown with weeds.

Restorers dug down about a meter to reach the travertine paving stones and uncovered coins, statues, animal bones and a gold ring.

Associated Press

Deeper down lies the secret underground passageway where Emperor Commodus used to enter the Colosseum while avoiding the hoi-polloi, which was opened to the public last year.

Restorers sourced the new travertine slabs from the same quarries where the ancient Romans retrieved theirs.

“Rome’s Colosseum gets a fresh look that recreates the footprints of long-gone columns Rome’s Colosseum gets a fresh look that recreates the footprints of long-gone columns ROME (AP) — The Colosseum has a bright new look following a restoration using the same travertine marble of ancient Rome to recreate parts of columns from 2,000 years ago”

Associated Press

Those quarries today supply travertine for a new generation of religious buildings, banks, museums, government buildings and private homes.

Fabrizio Mariotti, head of the Mariotti Carlo stonecutting firm, said, “From the beginning we understood only one thing and that we wanted to be involved.

For a family like ours that has been working with travertine for four generations, working at the Colosseum, which is the symbol not only of Rome but also of this material, is so important.”

Earlier this year, the city of Rome opened two new subway stations, one deep beneath the Colosseum completing a multi-billion euro metro project.

The restoration of the Colosseum’s perimeter was done using compensatory funds from the metro, project officials said.