Triumphal arch
Effectively invented by the Romans, and using their skill in making arches and vaults, the Roman triumphal arch was used to commemorate victorious generals or significant public events such as the founding of new colonies, the construction of a road or bridge, the death of a member of the imperial family or the accession of a new emperor.
[1] and more generally a combination of "one large and two small doorways",[2] such as Leon Battista Alberti's façades for the Tempio Malatestiano and San Andrea, Mantua.
What were originally supporting columns became purely decorative elements on the outer face of arch, while the entablature, liberated from its role as a building support, became the frame for the civic and religious messages that the arch builders wished to convey through the use of statuary and symbolic, narrative and decorative elements.
The minority type of arch with passageways in both directions, often placed at crossroads, is called a tetrapylon (or arcus quadrifrons in Latin), as it has four piers.
[11] He wrote that they were intended to "elevate above the ordinary world" an image of an honoured person usually depicted in the form of a statue with a quadriga.
[11] However, the designs of Roman imperial triumphal arches – which became increasingly elaborate over time and evolved a regularised set of features – were clearly intended to convey a number of messages to the spectator.
Sculpted panels depicted victories and achievements, the deeds of the triumphator, the captured weapons of the enemy or the triumphal procession itself.
The form of each letter and the spacing between them was carefully designed for maximum clarity and simplicity, without any decorative flourishes, emphasizing the Roman taste for restraint and order.
In the now dismantled City Gate of Capua of the 1230s, the Emperor Frederick II attempted a triumphal arch in the idiom of Romanesque architecture.
[12] It was not until the coming of the Renaissance, however, that rulers sought to associate themselves systematically with the Roman legacy by building their own triumphal arches.
Probably the earliest large recreation was the "Aragonese Arch" at the Castel Nuovo in Naples, erected by Alfonso V of Aragon in 1470, supposedly to commemorate his taking over the kingdom in 1443, although like the later Porta Capuana this was a new façade for the gateway to the castle.
By the end of the 16th century the triumphal arch had become closely linked with court theatre, state pageantry and military fortifications.
Newly elected popes, for instance, processed through the streets of Rome under temporary triumphal arches built specially for the occasion.
[14] Temporary wooden triumphal arches were also built in Malta for ceremonies in which a newly elected Hospitaller Grand Master took possession of Mdina[15] and sometimes Birgu.
It was one of the largest prints ever produced, measuring 3.75 metres (12.3 ft) high and consisting of 192 individual sheets, depicting an arch that was never intended to be built.
[19] North Korea's dictator Kim Il Sung built the world's largest triumphal arch in Pyongyang in 1982.
[10] It was designed to be substantially bigger than the Arc de Triomphe in Paris and was erected on the site where, on October 14, 1945, Kim Il Sung gave his first public speech to the North Korean people.
Although patterned after triumphal arches, these were built for quite different purposes – to memorialise war casualties, to commemorate a civil event (the country's independence, for example), or to provide a monumental entrance to a city, as opposed to celebrating a military success or general.
