ARCO DI PORTOGALLO
an arch over the via Lata close to the ara Pacis,
which is often called
ARCUS HADRIANI, because of two reliefs of the
Hadrianic period that adorned it and are now in the Palazzo dei Conservatori (Helbig Fuhrer , 897, 990; Strong, Sculpture 236-8; SScR
213-215;
PBS iv. 258-263;
v. 180; Cons. Cat. 36, 266). The keystone is
also in the same place (ib. 37). This arch was removed in 1662 by
Alexander VII in order that the Corso might be widened.
1 It was known
earlier as the arcus Octaviani (
PBS iii. 269-271), but from the sixteenth
century it was called Arco di Portogallo because it adjoined the residence of
the Portuguese ambassador, the Palazzo Peretti-Fiano. The foundation
of one of the piers has been found beneath the present palace, 2.36 metres
below the level of the Corso. Extant drawings of this arch, dating from
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (HJ 466;
PBS ii. 35, and No. 52;
LR 507), show a single archway flanked on each side with two columns,
and surrounded with a cornice (Ill. 2). The architecture seems to belong to
a period later than that of Hadrian, and it is quite possible that the arch
itself is of considerably later date-being in fact sometimes assigned de-
finitely to Marcus Aurelius-and that it was decorated with sculpture
from earlier monuments, as was the case with the arch of Constantine.
Indeed, Hulsen (DAP 2. xi. 174) believes it to belong to the fourth or
fifth century, and to have been built with fragments of earlier buildings.
One of the sides was demolished in the twelfth century, when a fragment
of the cornice was removed to S. Maria in Trastevere (HJ 465-468;
BC 1891, 18-23;
1896, 239-246;
1915, 333). This is against its having been
a' mediaeval pasticcio ' (Cons. 36).
