Arco di Augusto

Beyond the Roman bridge over the Buthier stream stands Aosta's single-bay triumphal arch, a monument to the founding of the Roman colony. Raised in 25 BC, the year the colony of Augusta Praetoria was established, it belongs to the city's founding works and stands as an emphatic statement of imperial power at the gateway to the Alps.

Why it matters

The arch commemorates the decisive victory of Rome over the Salassi, the Celtic people who controlled the Great and Little St Bernard passes. Erected on the road leading to Porta Praetoria, the main entrance of the new colony, it formed a monumental approach to the new colony and a statement of Augustan power. Few monuments in Italy bind a city's identity so completely to its founding moment. Its relationship to the river and the historic centre forms part of the Roman colony's inherited urban structure, and it has watched over Aosta for two thousand years.

What to notice

Look at the deliberate austerity of the design: a single round-headed opening with a barrel vault, about nine metres wide, framed by four corner semi-columns on Attic bases with Corinthian capitals. The entablature carries Doric triglyphs and metopes, an archaic-flavoured choice typical of late Republican taste. Four shallow niches on the façades once held reliefs, probably trophies of war. The arch has long lost its attic storey, which carried a dedicatory inscription in bronze letters. Beneath the keystone hangs a modern crucifix, a copy placed in 1980 of the late medieval votive cross that gave the arch its popular name of Saint-Voult.

Context and history

The arch was built immediately after the Alpine campaign of Aulus Terentius Varro Murena, in the same year Augustus founded the colony. Its position just beyond the Roman bridge over the Buthier made it part of a single monumental approach to the city. In the Middle Ages the structure was absorbed into everyday urban life: a crucifix was hung under the vault, and in 1449 it was replaced during a procession held to pray against the floods of the nearby stream. A restoration in 1913–1914 gave the monument the appearance described in the municipal history.