AMERICAN EXPRESS PARTNERS IN PRESERVATION
Split, Croatia
Diocletian’s Palace (late 3rd–early 4th centuries A.D.)
WMF
has been involved in two major projects at Diocletian’s Palace: the
conservation of the Temple of Jupiter, now completed, and the
conservation of the Peristyle, currently underway. The palace was
constructed to serve as a retreat and retirement home for the Late Roman
emperor Diocletian, and its design incorporates elements of Roman
military and villa architecture.
Surrounded by fortifications and
crisscrossed by perpendicular streets, it stands
as an extremely rare example of a Roman palace preserved in a
recognizable form within a continuously occupied historic city center in
Europe. The Peristyle at Diocletian’s Palace is a large courtyard lined
on two sides by colonnades; the third side is marked by the monumental
entrance to the imperial apartments.
Documentation, structural analysis and
other studies have been completed as well as a pilot conservation
project, during which a portion of the east colonnade was cleaned and
stabilized, and corroded iron clamps installed during prior
conservation efforts were removed and replaced with non-corrosive
materials. A maintenance plan for the site will be created and
conservation of the rest of the Peristyle will now begin.
