Arco di Augusto, Rimini

The Arch of Augustus (Arco di Augusto) stands at the southern edge of Rimini's historic centre in Emilia-Romagna, the oldest surviving Roman triumphal arch in Italy. It was erected in 27 BC by decree of the Roman Senate to honour the Emperor Augustus, and it marked the point where the Via Flaminia, the great road from Rome, met the Via Aemilia, which ran north-west across the Po plain toward Piacenza. In this sense the arch served as a monumental gateway into the colony of Ariminum, the Roman name for Rimini, celebrating Augustus's restoration of the roads of Italy. Built of Istrian stone over a brick and concrete core, it has a single broad archway nearly nine metres high, flanked by engaged Corinthian half-columns and crowned by an entablature bearing a dedicatory inscription to Augustus. Above the arch, four circular medallions carry portraits of Roman deities — Jupiter and Apollo on one face, Neptune and Roma on the other — linking the emperor to the protective gods of the state. The arch was unusually wide for its date because it was never fitted with defensive doors; the brick crenellations on top are a medieval addition from the era when the structure was incorporated into the city walls. Those flanking walls were demolished in 1938 to isolate the monument, and it now rises freestanding within a small green piazza. After more than two thousand years it survives in remarkable condition, one of the most complete Augustan monuments in northern Italy. Together with the nearby Tiberius Bridge, it anchors Rimini's Roman heritage, and it remains a powerful symbol of the city and the engineering ambition of the early Empire.