A Collection of Arcs de Triomphe (none of them in Paris) Part 1: Pre 1900

Triumphal Arches - What is and What is Not

This is the third iteration of this post. The original, published 01/04/2014, was ‘Four Arcs de Triomphe (none of them in Paris). The second, 29/06/2018, included newly collected arches, but also omitted Lutyens’ India Gate from the earlier post on the grounds it was a War Memorial, not a Triumphal Arch.

Defining a Triumphal Arch is difficult. Some arches called Triumphal have no associated triumph, and then there are Monumental Gates and War Memorials which can look very similar.

Although retaining the title, I have chosen a new and more inclusive definition for these posts (there are now two of them, this one and post-1900). For the purposes of this blog an ‘Arc de Triomphe’ is an arch with no structural purpose. This definition includes war memorials built in arch form – like the India Gate mentioned above and also Monumental Gates as long as they were built to be symbolic i.e. not city gates built as part of a wall, even if the wall has long gone. Another qualification of inclusion is that I have been there and taken the photograph.

Almost all modern arches owe a debt to the Parisian Arch, because it was (almost) the first modern Arc de Triomphe; but it was not, of course, the original. Like so much in Europe, Triumphal Arches are a Roman idea.

Classical Arches

None of my modern arches are in Paris, so none of my classical arches are in Rome.

In order of construction they are:

Hadrian's Arch, Gerasa, Jordan

Built 129 CE Visited 10th of November 2019

Jordan

There site of Gerasa (modern Jerash) in northern Jordan has been inhabited since prehistory. The city, though, was founded by Alexander the Great who breezed through in 333 BCE, or by one of his successors. The Romans arrived in 63 BCE and Gerasa became part of the Roman Province of Syria. Set in a relatively fertile area, with iron-ore deposits nearby the city could not but thrive. In 106 CE it became part of the Province of Arabia and became even richer thanks to the Emperor Trajan's road building programme. The start of the 2nd century saw much new building and a new grid plan, and then the honour of an imperial visit. Trajan, who had been responsible for much of Gerasa's recent prosperity, died in 117, so it was Hadrian who made the visit in 129, and thus the Triumphal Arch bears his name.

Hadrian's Arch, Jerash/Gerasa

The Arch of Marcus Aurelius, Tripoli

Built 165 CE, Visited April 2006

Libya

We visited Libya in 2006, the home of two well preserved/restored Roman arches. The Arch of Marcus Aurelius in Tripoli was built to commemorate the victory of Marcus's adopted brother, Lucius Verus, over the Parthians. It seems a thin excuse for building an arch so far away from the events, but perhaps he felt in need of a monument.

The Arch of Marcus Aurelius, Tripoli

The Arch of Septimius Severus, Leptis Magna

Built 203 CE, Visited April 2006

The ruins of Leptis Magna lie 130 km east of Tripoli. Septimius Severus, Rome’s only African emperor, was born here in 145 CE. He became emperor in 193 and ruled until he fell ill attempting to conquer Caledonia, and died in York in 211. He is honoured by an arch in Rome commemorating his victory over the Parthians (it seems Lucius Verus failed to finish them off) and this one in his home town.

The Arch of Septimius Severus, Leptis Magna

The Modern Link

Napoleon in a Toga, Bastia

France

After the Romans, triumphal arches went out of fashion until the days of Napoleon who rather fancied himself as a latter day Roman emperor. The wonderfully camp statue below is in Bastia the capital of northern Corsica. Napoleon was born in Ajaccio, the capital of southern Corsica – is it possible that Bastia was taking the mickey out of their rival’s favourite son?

Napoleon in a toga, Bastia

Planning the Paris Arc de Triomphe started in 1806 but it was not completed until 1836 by which time some of the shine had come off Napoleon’s triumphs. That did not deter the Parisians, nor indeed many others, as where Paris led the rest followed. St Petersburg has one (1829), as has New York (1892) and Mexico City (1938). London hopped on the bandwagon early, the Wellington Arch in Green Park dates from 1826 - though before I began researching triumphal arches I had never heard of it.

Modern Arches pre-1900

For 20th and 21st Century Arches, see Part 2

So, in order of construction....

The Corinthian Arch, Stowe, Buckinghamshire

Built 1765 Visited 30th July 2014 and subsequently

United Kingdom

The Napoleonic era may have re-invented Triumphal Arches, but my first example is an outlier. Built 4 years before Napoleon was born, it was a product of the 18th century fascination with everything classical, even when they misunderstood the context.

The Temple Family became rich from sheep farming. In 1683 Sir Richard Temple started building the first Stowe House. His son, who married into more wealth and became Lord Cobham started work on the garden. Over the next few generations as they married into more and more wealth, and acquired more names and more titles, they built one of the finest houses and the finest garden of its type in England.

And a great garden needs a great entrance. The Corinthian Arch was built in 1765 at the end of the long drive.

The Corinthian arch at Stowe, photographed from half way down the drive

Visiting great gardens was popular in the 18th century, but the casual visitor did not enter through the arch, they were diverted via the family’s New Inn. The same is true today, the road swings right to the National Trust car park behind the (not so) New Inn. Once inside, you can approach the arch on foot.

The Corinthian Arch, Stowe

The arch represents a triumph over the ‘little people’ – anybody who had less money than the Temples – which was just about everyone. Arrogant and high handed they kept on spending and in 1848, four generations after they had been the richest family in the country, Richard Plantagenet Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville (I said they collected names!) eventually spent them into bankruptcy. The rest of the British aristocracy smirked quietly.

Arcul de Triumf, Chişinău

Moldova

Built 1841 Visted 24th June 2018

The modest capital of Moldova has an appropriately modest triumphal arch, 13m high and sporting a clock that would not look out of place on a railway station.

Arcul de Triumf

There were 12 Russo-Turkish Wars, the first 1568-70 and last World War One which ended the Ottoman and Russian Empires. Designed by Luca Zauşkevici the arch commemorates the Russian victory in the 1828-9 version of this fixture. It was built to house a 6.4t bell made from melted down Ottoman cannons originally intended for the cathedral bell tower (the predecessor of the one in this picture), but it would not fit. It strikes the hour with a rather unmusical ‘dunk’.

Arc de Triomf, Barcelona

Spain

Built 1888 Visited 29th March 2008

A whimsical piece of modernista architecture with Islamic-style brickwork, Barcelona’s Arc de Triomf was designed by Josep Vilaseca and built in 1888 as the entrance to the Barcelona World Fair.

Arc de Triomf, Barcelona

The arch represents no military triumph, real or imagined, and the sculpture on the front frieze is called Barcelona rep les nacions (Barcelona welcomes the nations). It was a marginal inclusion under the previous criteria, but I felt it represented an altogether healthier expression of national (in this case Catalan) pride than any of the other Arcs de Triomphe.