Emperor Constantine, the fourth-century ruler whose embrace of Christianity helped spread the faith throughout the Roman Empire, now has a reconstructed statue befitting his larger-than-life role in history.
Rome authorities on Tuesday unveiled a massive 13m replica of the statue Constantine commissioned for himself after 312 AD. It was imagined using 3D modeling technology from scans of the nine giant original marble body parts that remain.
The result: An imposing figure of a seated emperor, draped in a gilded tunic and holding a scepter and orb, gazing over his Rome from a side garden of the Capitoline Museums. The reconstructed statue is just around the corner from the museum courtyard where the original fragments of Constantine’s giant feet, hands and head are prime tourist attractions.
Photo: AP
Reconstituted into its original whole, the statue inspires awe in the smaller viewers below — just as Constantine originally intended for his subjects, officials said at the unveiling.
“In this statue there’s not just beauty, there’s the violence of power,” said Salvatore Settis, an archeologist and art historian who is on the steering committee of the Fondazione Prada, the cultural and educational arm of the Milan-based fashion house which financed the project.
Officials declined to say how much the initiative cost, but the replica was made by the Factum Foundation, a Madrid-based nonprofit that creates high-resolution digital replicas of the world’s cultural patrimony.
Photo: Tiziana Fabi, AFP
“This whole dynamic about how you use technology to transform our understanding of and the importance of cultural heritage is the core mission of Factum Foundation,” group founder Adam Lowe said.
The statue itself is made from resin, polyurethane and marble powder for the body, and gold leaf and plaster for the gilded tunic that drapes over it.
A second version of the statue is to be installed in northeast England, where Constantine guarded the Hadrian’s Wall fortification before being crowned emperor in Rome.
ACTIONABLE ADVICE: The majority of chatbots tested provided guidance on weapons, tactics and target selections, with Perplexity and Meta AI deemed to be the least safe From school shootings to synagogue bombings, leading artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots helped researchers plot violent attacks, according to a study published on Wednesday that highlighted the technology’s potential for real-world harm. Researchers from the nonprofit watchdog Center for Countering Digital Hate and CNN posed as 13-year-old boys in the US and Ireland to test 10 chatbots, including ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Perplexity, Deepseek and Meta AI. Eight of the chatbots assisted the make-believe attackers in more than half the responses, providing advice on “locations to target” and “weapons to use” in an attack, the study said. The chatbots had become a “powerful accelerant for
Australians were downloading virtual private networks (VPNs) in droves, while one of the world’s largest porn distributors said it was blocking users from its platforms as the country yesterday rolled out sweeping online age restriction. Australia in December became the first country to impose a nationwide ban on teenagers using social media. A separate law now requires artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbot services to keep certain content — including pornography, extreme violence and self-harm and eating disorder material — from minors or face fines of up to A$49.5 million (US$34.6 million). The country also joined Britain, France and dozens of US states requiring
Hungarian authorities temporarily detained seven Ukrainian citizens and seized two armored cars carrying tens of millions of euros in cash across Hungary on suspicion of money laundering, officials said on Friday. The Ukrainians were released on Friday, following their detention on Thursday, but Hungarian officials held onto the cash, prompting Ukraine to accuse Hungary’s Russia-friendly government of illegally seizing the money. “We will not tolerate this state banditism,” Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said. The seven detained Ukrainians were employees of the Ukrainian state-owned Oschadbank, who were traveling in the two armored cars that were carrying the money between Austria and
Kosovar President Vjosa Osmani on Friday after dissolving the Kosovar parliament said a snap election should be held as soon as possible to avoid another prolonged political crisis in the Balkan country at a time of global turmoil. Osmani said it is important for Kosovo to wrap up the upcoming election process and form functional institutions for political stability as the war rages in the Middle East. “Precisely because the geopolitical situation is that complex, it is important to finish this electoral process which is coming up,” she said. “It is very hard now to imagine what will happen next.” Kosovo, which declared
RSS