Gladiators

Gladiators analyzes the most famous munera gladiator figures and allows to know even the least famous ones through reconstruction of arms, types of combat, weapons, techniques and secrets of different warrior categories. Thanks to over 200 colour and b/w illustrations you will enter into the world of gladiators, their private lives, the most secret corners of the larger amphiteater even built by man: the Colosseum. The book will relate the origins of the complex phenomenon of death sentences or damnationes, of both ad bestias and ad gladium damnatio and the origin of hunts or venationes. It will also show how this strange, horrible and fascinating phenomenon was interpreted and even experienced by many illustrious emperors.

Silvano Mattesini is an architect and a professor of History of Art. He is one of the greatest experts of Roman, gladiatoral, military weaponry: he owns the largest museum of Roman and gladiatoral weapons in Europe. He reconstructs weapons, helmets, armours of a period dating from IV century BC to IV century AD. He’s the author of numerous books on this subject and has also staged, in recent years, the “GLADIATORES” exhibition of the Flavian Amphiteater.