Pulcherrima Spolia in the Architecture and Urban Space at Tripoli

The examples studied testify an ample and significant use of Roman spolia during the first Ottoman domination of Tripoli. In this period a variety of causes led to the improvement of the urban image of the city. The study focuses less on the re-use of spolia as construction material inside the main Muslim buildings (mosques) and more on the re-use of spolia for the specific urban purpose of preserving and immortalizing the Roman urban matrix. Particularly significant is the case of the Tetrapylon of Marcus Aurelius of the Roman Tripoli (Oea), and its ‘quotation’: the cross-roads of Arba ֓ Arsat, known as the Four Columns of the Arab and then Ottoman Tarabulus. The second is an evident reproduction of the form and urban function of a Roman model. Its genesis may have preceded Turkish rule, but its symbolic value was certainly consolidated during the first Ottoman dominatio