The Hall of the Emperors in Palazzo Nuovo, at the Capitoline Museums, hosts a temporary re-display to highlight one of the most extraordinary works in the Capitoline epigraphic collections: the bronze tablet with the dedication by the Vigiles to the Severans.
Thanks to the combination of humanistic knowledge and digital technologies, the object, originally decorated with three appliques depicting Septimius Severus, Geta and Caracalla, is reconstructed for the first time as it appeared in its different phases of existence.
The initiative, promoted by Roma Capitale, the Department of Culture and the Coordination of initiatives linked to the Giornata della Memoria, together with the Capitoline Superintendency for Cultural Heritage, arises from a multidisciplinary collaboration with the University of Verona (Department of Cultures and Civilisations), which involved the 3D survey of the work as part of a broader research activity led by Prof. Dario Calomino, funded by European Community funds.
A cutting-edge intervention that has led to an important scientific confirmation: the 3D scans and the virtual reunification with the bust of Septimius Severus held at the British Museum in London have provided definitive proof that the London applique belongs to the Roman tablet. The bust, stolen from the Capitoline Museums at an unknown date, reappeared on the antiques market without any indication of its original context and was sold to the British Museum in 1873.
The project also offers the opportunity to rediscover the object as it was originally, reconstructing its complex historical vicissitudes from the imperial age to modern times.
The new temporary display includes the original tablet alongside two resin 3D prints derived from the three-dimensional scan and digitally restored, which reconstruct two versions corresponding to key moments in its history.
The first reproduction shows the original state of the object (AD 203) in its configuration prior to the damnatio memoriae of Geta, decorated with the busts of Septimius Severus (at the centre), Caracalla (on the right) and Geta (on the left). The part of the text erased after the public condemnation of Geta's memory has been restored, and his bust generated with Artificial Intelligence.
The second reproduction, hand-painted, follows the drawing published by the scholar Cassiano Dal Pozzo in the Museum Chartaceum of 1650. In this phase Geta's name is erased and his bust removed and replaced with that of a Genius, the protective deity of the Centuria named in the dedication, also generated with Artificial Intelligence. Today, in place of the Genius, a modern female bust appears.
Both 3D prints also include a reproduction of the bust of Septimius Severus, scanned from the original and digitally added.
The re-display is an important opportunity to enhance the heritage of Palazzo Nuovo and the rich series of 67 portraits in the Hall of the Emperors.
The temporary exhibition of the tablet and its 3D reproductions, aligned with the busts of Caracalla and Geta, thus creates a direct and immediate dialogue between the epigraphic documentation and the imperial portraiture of the collection.