"

Roman" Obelisks
  by Margaret Coffin
of InfoRoma
"The Rome Experts"

Obelisks are four-sided pillars tapering to a point at the top, usually carved from a single block of stone. They were originally created by the ancient Egyptians to symbolize contact between the earth and the heavens, man and the gods. A pair of obelisks bearing commemorative inscriptions often stood at the entrance to temples, particularly those dedicated to the sun-god.

Several obelisks were brought to Rome in imperial times, after the conquest of Egypt.

Others were made by the Romans, who imitated Egyptian hieroglyphics to simulate the real thing. They were erected outside temples or mausoleums or on the central "spine" of circuses where chariot racing took place.

When the Roman empire came to an end, one by one the obelisks fell to the ground and were buried. It was not until the Renaissance that a renewed interest for antiquities caused them to be unearthed.

At the end of the 16th century, Pope Sixtus V had the idea of using them as landmarks to guide pilgrims around Rome. In an early attempt at rational town planning, he designed straight streets linking the major basilicas and erected an obelisk outside each one to be visible from a distance. (The obelisks were "christianized" by the addition of a cross on the top.)

In modern times, Mussolini erected other obelisks, some of modern construction, in his attempts to recreate the grandeur of ancient Rome.

Obelisk of St. Peter's Square
The obelisk which now stands in St. Peter's Square was brought to Rome in the time of Caligula and erected in Nero's circus, at the foot of Vatican Hill. Unlike the other obelisks, it remained standing throughout the Middle Ages. In 1585 Sixtus V decided to position it in front of the basilica of St. Peter's. The complicated feat of engineering was accomplished by Domenico Fontana and is illustrated by a number of drawings and by a fresco in the Vatican Library; it took 140 horses and 900 men. A story recounts that onlookers were ordered not to speak while the obelisk was being raised, on pain of death; but a sailor, seeing that the ropes were about to give way, shouted "Water to the ropes!" and by wetting the ropes the workmen managed to manoeuvre the obelisk into position. Eighty years later Gian Lorenzo Bernini designed St. Peter's Square, with its eliptical colonnade, around the obelisk. On the top were placed the emblems of the Chigi family (mounts and a star), encasing a fragment of the True Cross.

Obelisk of St. Mary Major
This obelisk, twin of the one outside the Quirinal Palace, was made in Rome in the time of Diocletian and originally stood outside the Mausoleum of Augustus. It was one of the first to be reutilized by Sixtus V, who placed it near the basilica of St. Mary Major from which the streets of his new town plan were to radiate out to Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, St. John Lateran, Piazza Venezia and Piazza del Popolo. (In fact only the last two, Via Panisperna and Via Sistina, were constructed before his death.)

Obelisk of St. John Lateran
This is the tallest of the obelisks in Rome and also the oldest: it was made in 1500 B.C., during the reign of Totmes III and Totmes IV, who are depicted in the hieroglyphics. After it was found in excavations in the Circus Maximus, Sixtus V placed it outside St. John Lateran at an important crossroads, where the roads from the Colosseum, St. Mary Major and St. Paul's without the Walls meet the Via Appia Nuova as it enters Porta San Giovanni from the South.

Obelisk of Piazza del Popolo
This obelisk was originally erected at Heliopolis, in Egypt, in 1300 B.C. It was one of the first to be brought to Rome, in the time of Augustus, and stood in the Circus Maximus. Sixtus V decided to put it in front of Santa Maria del Popolo, which had temporarily taken the place of the basilica of St. Sebastian as one of the seven churches of the Jubilee. It was to be the first obelisk seen by pilgrims arriving in Rome from the North along the Via Flaminia and was to be the focal point of the three streets fanning out from Piazza del Popolo: Via del Babuino, Via del Corso and Via Ripetta. At the beginning of the 19th century, Giuseppe Valadier designed the fountains at the foot of the obelisk and laid out the square as we see it today.

Obelisk of Piazza Navona
The obelisk was made in Rome in the time of Diocletian, using marble imported from Egypt. It is not known where it originally stood, but at the beginning of the 4th century Maxentius had it erected in the circus dedicated to the memory of his son Romulus, on the Appian Way near the tomb of Cecilia Metella. It later fell and broke into several pieces. In the 17th century, Pope Innocence X decided to follow Sixtus V's example and erect the obelisk in Piazza Navona. He asked Gian Lorenzo Bernini to incorporate it into the fountain which he was designing, the Fountain of the Rivers. A few fragments were missing and had to be replaced; they were later found and are now in the Egyptian Museum in the Vatican.

Obelisk of Piazza della Minerva
This obelisk is the smallest in Rome. It is made of red granite and originally came from the Egyptian town of Sais. After being brought to Rome, it stood outside the Temple of Isis, and was found beneath the ruins of the temple, in the garden of the monastery next to Santa Maria sopra Minerva. Pope Alexander VII (Chigi) commissioned Bernini to design a statue of an elephant to bear the obelisk; the sculpture was executed by Ercole Ferrata. The inscription, dictated by the pope, means: "He who sees the carved symbols on the obelisk of wise Egypt borne by the elephant, the strongest of animals, will understand that it is indeed a robust mind which sustains a solid wisdom". It is said that the pope deliberately had the elephant placed with its rear end towards the Dominican monastery.

Obelisk of the Pantheon
This obelisk, one of the smallest, once stood outside the Temple of the Sun in Heliopolis. After being brought to Rome, it decorated the Temple of Isis, together with the obelisk of Piazza della Minerva. At the beginning of the 18th century it was placed in its present position, in the middle of the 16th-century fountain designed by Giacomo della Porta.

Obelisk of Trinità dei Monti
This obelisk was made in Rome, not Egypt. The hieroglyphics are similar to those of the obelisk now standing in Piazza del Popolo, but some of them are upside down, probably because Roman workmen copied the inscription while the obelisk was lying on its side on the ground! It was erected outside the church of Trinità dei Monti, at the top of the Spanish Steps, in 1789.

Obelisk of the Quirinal
This obelisk is the twin of the one by the apse of St. Mary Major: they once stood outside the Mausoleum of Augustus. Their origin is unknown, but they may be of Roman manufacture as they have no hieroglyphics. In 1786 Pope Pius VI had the obelisk added to the fountain which already stood outside Palazzo Quirinale, the papal palace.

Obelisk of Montecitorio
This obelisk, like the one in Piazza del Popolo, was made in Heliopolis and brought to Rome in the time of Augustus, soon after the conquest of Egypt. It formed the needle of a giant sundial in the Campus Martius, not far from its present location: bronze markers, set into the paving, indicated the seasons, months and days. (It is described by Pliny in his Naturalis Historia.) It was erected in Piazza Montecitorio in 1792 by Pope Pius VI. In the new layout of the square it will once again be at the center of a sundial.

Obelisk of the Pincio
On the Pincio Hill, not far from the Belvedere overlooking Piazza del Popolo, stands one of the smaller obelisks. It once stood near the funeral monument which the emperor Hadrian erected in honor of his favorite Antinoos; it has been in its present position since 1822.

Obelisk of Via delle Terme di Diocleziano
This obelisk, of Egyptian origin, stands in the gardens opposite Termini Station. It was found near the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva in 1883 and erected four years later in front of the station; it was moved to its present position in 1925. The pedestal is inscribed with the names of the Italian soldiers who died in the battle of Dogali (Ethiopia) in January 1887.

Obelisks of Villa Torlonia
The two obelisks which stand in the gardens of Villa Torlonia were made in the 19th century by Prince Alessandro Torlonia. At great expense he had marble specially quarried in northern Italy and brought to Rome by boat: from Venice down the Adriatic coast to the Straits of Messina, up the western coast of Italy to the mouth of the Tiber, up the Tiber and the Aniene river to the point nearest his villa on the Via Nomentana. Workmen carved hieroglyphics on the obelisks, which were erected in 1840.

Obelisk of Axum
The obelisk, which stands at the south-eastern end of the Circus Maximus, was made in Ethiopia in the 4th century A.D. Unlike all the others, it has a rectangular section. Its sides are covered with stylized decorative carvings. It was brought to Italy in 1937 during the Fascist regime after the conquest of Ethiopia and erected outside the Ministry of Africa, the white building now housing the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. [Promised by Italy to be returned after the war, the obelisk remains in Rome, locked in place by taly's continuous foot-dragging ... even against their most recent (1988) promise to return. A January '01 news report in Rome suggests the obelisk may be about to return home. Stay tuned! EJG]

Obelisk of the Foro Italico
This obelisk, of modern manufacture, was erected by Mussolini. It consists of a block of Carrara marble carved to represent a "fascio littorio", the symbol of authority in ancient Rome adopted by Mussolini for his Fascist regime.

Monument to Guglielmo Marconi
The monument, a modern obelisk, is decorated with panels illustrating Marconi's work. It was begun in 1938 but erected only in 1959, when the EUR zone was completed after the war. It is not a monolith but consists of several blocks of marble one on top of the other.

Copyright © 1998 Margaret Coffin

Questions about this article? Comments for the author?

Margaret Coffin
InfoRoma
"The Rome Experts"
info@inforoma.it

Margaret Coffin was born and educated in Great Britain before moving to Rome in 1969. For many years she has spent most of her free time exploring the Eternal City and the surrounding area, Latium. In 1994 she left a full-time job as Logistics Manager with a multi-national telecommunications corporation to found InfoRoma and share her love of Rome with visitors from overseas.

InfoRoma specializes in custom itinerary planning: a unique personal sightseeing program is drawn up on the basis of each client's interests and requirements. An individually printed booklet sets out a day-by-day itinerary, together with all the practical details necessary for the independent traveler who wants accurate, up-to-date information about sights, events, restaurants and public transport in Rome.

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Published February 23, 1998
Last Revision December 30, 1998

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