Author: A. Labriola

Download article as .pdf: Le colonne romane del porto di Brindisi viste da mare: analisi dell’impatto visuale del monumento sul paesaggio costiero

The monumental columns still standing in Brindisi harbour represent the main vestiges of the city’s Roman past and have attracted the attention of travellers, humanists and scholars since the Renaissance. In the absence of references to them in the preserved ancient sources, various hypotheses on their function and significance have been formulated over time. The present contribution aims to provide new elements for the interpretation of the monument, deriving on the one hand from the search for comparisons between the Brindisi columns and similar realisations from the imperial period known archaeologically or from literary and iconographic sources, and on the other hand from the analysis of their visual impact on the maritime routes that led to the city, in order to verify whether they could have served as seamarks. The latter aspect was investigated through the elaboration of a three-dimensional model of Roman Brundisium and the surrounding area, which was used to obtain reconstructive perspective views from points located along some of the main access routes to the port, identified through the comparative analysis of various historical portolans.