Tetrarchs

The porphyry Tetrarchs group, since its arrival in Venice, has been situated in the south-east corner of the south façade of the church, in the lee of the Treasury wall.
It consists of four figures dressed in richly decorated armour and chlamys, a loose mantle buckled at the shoulder. They have flattish headgear that falls onto the forehead. They hold swords in their left hands. Two of them have their right hands on the left shoulder of the other two in a formal gesture of embrace. The solemn faces and the porphyry, a material exclusive in antiquity to gods, the emperor and his family, indicate that the four figures are imperial personages.

They are well preserved, the only important lacuna being the loss of the left foot and part of the ankle of the figure on the extreme right. This was made good with restoration in roseate porphyry.
With time numerous legends grew up around the statue. The first serious attempt at placing these four personages in history was made in the first half of the nineteenth century: they were identified as the members of the first tetrarchy established in 293 by Diocletian and Maximian as "Augusti" and Galerius and Julius Constantius as "Caesars".
In the 20th century the question was taken up again and debated: scholars agreed that the persons represented were definitely Tetrarchs but there remained some uncertainty as to whether they were those of the first tetrarchy or of the one established in 335 when Constantine divided the Empire among his three sons.

However it is certain that the work came from Constantinople. In 1965 excavations carried out in there by German and Turkish archaeologists brought to light, near the ancient Philadelphion square decorated with porphyry statuary, the left foot missing from one of the figures in the Venetian group. Having established that the Tetrarchs came from Constantinople, the meaning of the group as triumphal spoils of war is underlined: in the figures joined in fraternal embrace the Venetians recognised a symbolic value recalling their city's ties with Byzantium, which had been conquered militarily but to which the Serenissima felt united by deep cultural links.

The Tetrarchs
Red Egyptian porphiry