Rome Restores Trajan’s Basilica With the Help of Russian Oligarch’s Funds

Recovering some of the monument’s former glory, the new reconstruction of Basilica Ulpia extends the Corinthian colonnade from ground floor to two-story height, which is more than 23 meters.

“If visitors can’t sense the height of the monuments, they won’t understand the meaning of the architecture,” Claudio Parisi Presicce, Rome’s top official for cultural heritage, told AFP on a tour of the site.

The Basilica Ulpia was the centerpiece of Roman Emperor Trajan’s forum, and happens to be the largest and final of the imperial forums. It is named after Marcus Ulpius Traianus, emperor of Rome from 98 to 117 AD.

The forum was inaugurated in the 2nd century with the majority of it collapsing in the Middle Ages. However, it was unearthed in archaeological excavations in the early 19th century and the 1930s.

The current project began in 2021 with the identification of three green marble columns that had been abandoned for almost a hundred years. These had been “propped up in a corner with no connection with the floor plan,” Presicce said.

Engineers placed the columns back in their original spot on top of the four granite pillars that mark the outer perimeter of the basilica’s first nave. Between the two levels of columns, researchers and technicians have reproduced the entablature with its decorative frieze depicting winged victories sacrificing bulls.

The restoration project was financed with a 1.5 million euro donation from Uzbekistan-born oligarch Alisher Usmanov in 2015. He was later sanctioned by the European Union and the US when Russia invaded Ukraine, being accused by the US Treasury of close ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

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