The entrepreneurial widow from 2,000 years ago

Epigraph dedicated to Claudia Marcellina

In Roman times Corso Porta Borsari was the southern stretch of the decumanus maximus leading to the Forum, today's Piazza delle Erbe. Today the street is an elegant shopping street, and only a curious and attentive glance among the luxury storefronts can catch a glimpse of an epigraph that takes us back in time some two thousand years, on the trail of a Roman businesswoman from the second century AD.

As the stone inscription reads, her name was Claudia Marcellina and she was the wife of the Roman consul Bellicius Solerte. The man was a wealthy landowner and also ran brick kilns. It is precisely on the bricks that have come down to us that the couple's name is stamped initially and later only that of Claudia Marcellina, testifying to the fact that upon her husband's death Claudia had taken over the family business, thus becoming an autonomous and independent businesswoman. The stone block that bears her name was originally the base of a statue depicting her, erected in her honor, demostrating the importance she was accorded.