“Columna mutãtio – THE SPIRAL” is a monumental installation of contemporary art, conceived by the artist Luminiţa Țăranu, inspired by Trajan's Column. Contemporary artistic part of the great archeology exhibition “DACIA. The last frontier of Romanity", organized by the National Roman Museum with the MNIR of Bucharest and ongoing at the Baths of Diocletian from 21 November 2023 to 21 April 2024, promoted by the Ministry of Culture, by the General Directorate of Museums, by the National Museum Romano and by the Romanian Embassy in Italy, the work is exhibited in the small cloister of the Certosa di Santa Maria degli Angeli. The message that the artist intends to convey is the "mutation" of meaning that occurs in the turning of history, considering the The work is a heartfelt homage to the memory of that past relived in the present, in the dialogue between the historical, artistic and archaeological value of Trajan's Column and our contemporary world. Born to celebrate the conquest of Dacia by the Romans, Trajan's Column has over time become the symbol of the inseparable historical bond between Italy and Romania; if in the past it evoked the two wars waged by Emperor Trajan against Decebalus, King of the Dacians, today the Roman masterpiece is also a visual testimony with identity implications in the formation of the Romanian people and a symbol of the relationships of friendship and collaboration between the two countries, acquiring for this has a strong multicultural value.

His interpretation draws inspiration from the compositional dynamics of Apollodorus of Damascus - the designer of Trajan's Column, from the truthful narrative content of his frieze, from his casts and above all from the Roman world, from the world of the Dacians and from the spirituality of the Predacian world, responding in key contemporary with the content of the great archaeological exhibition dedicated to Dacia.

The key to your reading of Trajan's Column, which led you to the concept of Columna mutãtio as a contemporary conclusion, concerns the loss over time of the original function of the monument to pay homage to the Emperor Trajan through the most important of his conquests – Dacia , and that of a funerary monument. Today the masterpiece of art and architecture is a source of historical information, like an archaeological find preserved and kept in a museum, which allows us to investigate our past but also to reconstruct future scenarios through imagination. Hence the horizontal setting of the installation "Columna mutătio - THE SPIRAL" which does not allude to a physical or virtual "overturning" of the monument of great physical and evocative power, but interprets it as a museum object, metaphor of the concept according to which history scrolls horizontally.