Carmagnola (Venice)

Description

The red porphyry head is around 16 inches high and has concave pupils which were once filled with glass paste. The hair and eyes were once painted, but it is not known whether this was part of the original artwork or a later addition. It has been dated on stylistic grounds to between the 4th and 6th centuries and, as per its diadem, portrays a late Roman emperor, with several scholars identifying the subject as Justinian. The flattened nose is probably the result of damage and subsequent repolishing. Richard Delbrück suggests that the shape of the nose is original and that the portrait represents Justinian II, but this is unlikely; Justinian II's nose was cut off in an act of public humiliation, and the disfigurement would not have been commemorated in an honorific statue. The head is "one of the most significant" of the ornamental trophies that adorn the Basilica's facade, looking straight in the direction of Constantinople.

A headless porphyry statue kept at the Archiepiscopal Museum in Ravenna has been hypothesized to belong to the same original, though some historians believe that the head was not from the same statue.