Statue May Not Be Returned to Former Site After Restoration : Marcus Aurelius Joins Rome’s Homeless

The Emperor Marcus Aurelius has been unseated from his horse, strapped up and left suspended in midair since early 1980, but city authorities now say he could be back in the saddle within a year.

Seven years after restorers removed the 1,800-year-old bronze equestrian statue of the emperor from its position in the heart of the ancient Roman capital, the money has at last been found to return it to its former state.

But there is still a problem for the authorities to solve.

Until mid-February, when an insurance company donated about $462,000 to restore the statue, there had been little thought about what to do with the monument after the repairs.

Now a decision has to be made and, to howls of protest from some Romans, environmental experts say it may prove impossible to put the emperor back in his place.

Pollution, Vandalism Cited

Pollution, due mainly to the flood of traffic that daily clogs the city center, and exposure to the elements had caused most of the damage to the statue beloved by generations of Romans.

An urban guerrilla bomb exploded nearby in 1979, and experts say replacing the emperor in the Capitol square, designed by Michelangelo in the 16th Century, would put him at risk from vandalism as well as pollution.

“One has to get it absolutely right,” one expert said recently. “It’s not like Michelangelo just putting it (the statue) there and leaving it. It’s not a normal operation. We must find out what kind of risks Marcus Aurelius is likely to meet.”

The restorers favor replacing the statue with a copy, to be made with computer technology to ensure an exact likeness, and then installing the newly restored original safely inside one of the grandiose civic buildings nearby.

But the idea, first raised when the statue was taken down, has not been well received by many Romans.

One expert said at the time of the removal that failure to replace the original in its proper place would leave such a symbolic void that the city authorities might just as well put a modern Henry Moore statue there instead.

Sitting in Workshop

“We want Marcus Aurelius to go back to his original site,” Mayor of Rome Nicola Signorello said.

Marcus Aurelius has been sitting, separated from his horse, in a special harness suspended by chains from the ceiling of a workshop in the Trastevere quarter ever since he was carted off from the capital on the back of a truck in 1980.

His bearded face, staring impassively over the little room, gleams with gold. Experts hope that when layers of grime are removed, gold will be found still covering other parts of the monument to ancient Rome’s philosopher-emperor.

According to popular legend, when the horse and rider reappear in the square in their original golden glory, the world will end and the last judgment will be heard in ringing tones from the animal’s forelock.

The horse, with a gaping hole in its back where the emperor once rode, stands nearby in the workshop. Small pieces of sticky tape dotting its flanks are the only visible signs of six years of careful analysis.

Initial sponsorship of $70,000 provided by a Rome bank soon ran out, and restorers have until now not been able to do much to the monument other than measure the extent of its deterioration.

“We have been stuck at the preliminary stages since all the money ran out,” said Prof. Alessandra Melucco, who has been overseeing the work in progress at Rome’s Restoration Institute for the last four years.

The 1 1/2-ton horse, with its one raised leg, is so lifelike that it is said Michelangelo once challenged it to walk.