L’Ara Pacis di Augusto e la campagna elettorale per le elezioni amministrative, del 2006, del Comune di Roma

On 21th April 2006, anniversary of the founding of Rome, the Major Walter Veltroni inaugurated the new Ara Pacis Museum designed by the American architect Richard Meyer. The building replaced the previous shrine created by Vittorio Ballio Morpurgo, between 1937 and 1938, and commissioned by Benito Mussolini. Background of the 2006 ceremony, not without controversy, was “the fiery climate” of the political campaign for the election of the Mayor of the city. Election campaign that put in the middle of the political clash, and of the political debate, the Museum designed by Meier. Therefore, in the essay, Gabriella De Marco analyzes the attention by the contemporary politic towards a cultural project that only a distracted reading may narrow to the specific context of the archaeology, the history and the urban planning. The author proposes a reflection conducted through the methodological tools of the history of art. The text, therefore, is not built on the analysis of the Museum of Meier and on the other technical matters, on which there is a wide and qualified scientific literature, but on the use of history, archaeology, and urban planning as a current form of political and electoral communication.