Friday, May 29, 2015

OBELISK OF THE MONUMENT TO THE 500 FALLEN IN DOGALI

OBELISCO DEL MONUMENTO AI 500 CADUTI DI DOGALI


Built for the pharaoh Ramses II (1297/1213 BC) at Heliopolis in Egypt in about 1280 BC

It was taken to Rome in the first century BC to decorate probably the driveway of the Iseo Campensis, the temple dedicated to the Egyptian goddess Isis

It was found in 1883 in Via Beato Angelico precisely in the area where the Temple of Isis used to stand
The monument was designed by Francesco Azzurri (1831/1901) and it was erected in 1887

It was located, in the first place, in front of the Termini Train Station and it was moved in the current location in 1925

It is dedicated to the 548 Italian soldiers killed in Dogali, Eritrea on January 26, 1887 after whom the nearby Piazza dei Cinquecento is named

In 1936 after the colonial conquest of Ethiopia a bronze statue of a “Lion of Judah”, the Ethiopian national symbol, was placed at its base. It was returned after the war

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