Casale di Malborghetto in Rome is a building that has incorporated a quadrifrons arch from the 4th century AD, placed as a landmark at the intersection between Via Flaminia and a connecting road between Veii and the Tiberina. The tetrapylon, rectangular in plan, on four brick pillars, was crowned by an attic with a flat roof.
The presence of a triumphal arch on Via Flaminia, datable to the 4th century AD, has been related to the descent of Constantine’s troops from the north precisely along this road to oppose those of Emperor Maxentius. Christian tradition holds that Constantine, camped in this place, saw at sunset in the sky the sign of the cross and that “during sleep he is warned to mark the heavenly sign of God on the shields and to engage in battle.”
The next day, October 28, 312, Constantine defeated the rival’s army at Saxa Rubra and Maxentius himself perished in the waters of the Tiber. Following this victory, in 315, the Roman Senate erected the two-faced arch near the Colosseum in the Urbe and perhaps the one in Malborghetto in the Suburbium.
Over time the arch has undergone numerous structural and functional transformations. In the 11th century it became a fortified church dedicated to the Virgin and in the 13th century it was incorporated into the city walls of a castrum, named by sources Burgus S. Nicolai de arcu Virginis.
Part of the defenses of the Papal State until the 15th century, it was destroyed during the conflicts between the Orsini and the Sacrofanesi. Transformed into a farmhouse and surrounded by the ruins of the Borgo, it took from then on the name Malborghetto or Borghettaccio.
In 1567 the building was restored by the Milanese apothecary (aromatarius) Costantino Petrasanta and then in the 18th century adapted as a Half Post Station.
It maintained this function until Pope Pius VI, connecting Civita Castellana to the Cassia Road, abolished the postal service along the suburban stretch of Via Flaminia. Having returned to being a simple farmhouse, only in 1982 did it become part of the State Property. After careful restoration work, it houses an Antiquarium with finds related to Via Flaminia.
