Slab of the Barbarossa

The carved slab displayed in Hall 6 of the Museum originated
from the central pilaster of Porta Romana. It shows a man, his face framed by
long hair, beard and moustache, dressed in a short tunic and a cloak, sitting
with his legs crossed above a monstrous figure, his right hand raised to hold a
sceptre and the left hand resting on his knee. Tradition holds that we are looking at a
caricature of Frederick Barbarossa and it seems that the Milanese, at the time
of re-founding their city, wanted to display it on the city gate as a mockery. According to other scholars, in particular
according to the historian Galvano Fiamma (1283-1344), it is instead the
Emperor Manuel I Commeno, enemy of Barbarossa and one of the main financiers of
the reconstruction of the city. In fact the crossed legs, the mantle and the
lily sceptre are typical of imperial portraits, but there is insufficient
evidence to endorse this hypothesis.