Along the ancient Via Flaminia is the Casale di Malborghetto which incorporates a four-sided arch of the fourth century AD, positioned to mark the junction between the Via Flaminia and a side street.
The arch is rectangular, has four brick pillars, and was crowned with an attic flat roof.
Perhaps the arch has a relationship with the descent from the north of the troops of Constantine along this road to oppose the emperor Maxentius.
The Christian tradition has it that Constantine, camped in this place, has seen at sunset in the sky the sign of the cross and that "during sleep he dreamed to mark the shields with the celestial sign of God and to do battle."
The next day, on October 28, 312, Constantine vanquished the army of Maxentius at Saxa Rubra.
Following this victory, in 315, the Roman Senate erected in the City the two-faced arch near the Colosseum and perhaps here that of Malborghetto.
Over time the arch has undergone several transformations.
In the eleventh century, it became a fortified church dedicated to the Virgin and in the thirteenth became part of the walls of a castrum in a small village.
It became part of the Papal States defenses until the fifteenth century and was destroyed during the battles between the feudal lords. Transformed into a farmhouse surrounded with the ruins of the village, it took the name of Malborghetto.
In 1567 the building was restored and operated as a post station until the eighteenth century when Pius VI abolished the postal service.
It now houses an Antiquarium filled with the finds from along the Via Flaminia.
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