PINCIAN HILL OBELISK

OBELISCO PINCIANO

Piazza Bucarest

Built for Hadrian (117/138) and dedicated to his gay lover Antinous, who was born in Bithynia in northern Turkey

It was found in 1500 near the church of S. Croce in Gerusalemme, where in antiquity there was the Sessorian Palace and it was moved in 1632 in front of Palazzo Barberini by pope Urban VIII

It was moved again in 1773 in the Cortile della Pigna in the Vatican, where he was never raised, and finally erected here on the Pincian Hill in 1822 by Giuseppe Marini for Pius VII Chiaramonti (1800/23)

The inscriptions on the obelisk say that it was placed on the tomb of Antinous and that the tomb of Antinous was in the garden of the emperor in Rome

Maybe then it was in the gardens of Adonis on the Palatine Hill from which also come the round reliefs of the Arch of Constantine

“The cult of Antinous lasted much longer than the reign of Hadrian, his imperial lover. Free of Hadrian he drew his mass following, and his image is found not only in works of art for the upper classes but also in objects of daily life - lamps, plates and bowls. Whatever was the original idea behind his deification, the ageless Bitinious became a talisman by which the Greeks inhabitants of the empire could simultaneously celebrate their identity and their loyalty to Rome. He embodied the reconciliation between the two dominant cultures of the Mediterranean world. He was the Panhellenic ideal made flesh” (Anthony Everitt)

LATERAN OBELISK

OBELISCO LATERANENSE

Piazza di S. Giovanni in Laterano

Erected for Pharaoh Thutmose III (1457/1424 BC) and his nephew Thutmose IV (1398/1388 BC), both mentioned in the inscription, at Thebes in front of the Temple of Ammon in about 1400 BC

At the time of Moses it was already about 200 years old and it stood in front of the Temple of Ammon for about 1700 years in total

It was brought to Rome by Constantius II (337/361) in 357 and placed in the Circus Maximus

Originally Constantine (306/337), Costantius II's father, had it moved from Thebes and taken to Alexandria to be eventually transported to Constantinople, but after his death, Constantius II changed the destination

It was found at 7 m (23 feet) deep in the Circus Maximus and transported to the Lateran by Domenico Fontana (1543/1607) on August 3, 1588 after a year of work in place of the statue of Marcus Aurelius on horseback that had been moved to the Capitol

It is the oldest (if one does not consider the Vatican Obelisk that maybe dates back to 1990 BC) and the highest in Rome: 32.18 m (105.5 feet) and, including the basement, 47 m (154 feet) for a weight of 230 tons (253 tons)

Part of the inscription informs that the obelisk remained in production for thirty years “in the hands of the workers” at the side of the temple of Ammon at Thebes

A small section of the base is still in the center of the Circus Maximus

FLAMINIUM OBELISK

OBELISCO FLAMINIO

Piazza del Popolo

Erected for Pharaoh Ramses II (1297/1213 BC) and his son Mineptah at Heliopolis in Egypt in about 1250 BC

It is 23.30 m (76 feet) high

It was brought to Rome by Augustus and placed in the center of the Circus Maximus in 10 BC

The inscription still on the base remembers the dedication of the obelisk that Augustus made to the Sun

It was found in 1587 at the center of the Circus Maximus broken in three and it was restored and moved to Piazza del Popolo by Domenico Fontana (1543/1607) in 1589 for Sixtus V Peretti (1585/90)

When it was moved to Piazza del Popolo an inscription was engraved on the side facing the church of S. Maria del Popolo in opposition to the Augustan one: “Most august and more glad I rise before the sacred temple of her virginal womb from which during the reign of Augustus the Sun of Justice was born”

It was decorated in 1823 with the basins and the fake Egyptian lions by Giuseppe Valadier (1762/1839) who replaced the previous fountain by Giacomo Della Porta

OBELISK OF THE MONUMENT TO THE 500 FALLEN IN DOGALI

OBELISCO DEL MONUMENTO AI 500 CADUTI DI DOGALI

Viale Luigi Einaudi

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

GUGLIELMO MARCONI'S OBELISK

OBELISCO DI GUGLIELMO MARCONI

Piazza Guglielmo Marconi

1937/59 Arturo Dazzi (1881/1966)

It was built in reinforced concrete, 45 m (148 feet) high

92 panels in Carrara marble with “Guglielmo Marconi achievements, and other allegorical scenes”

Guglielmo Marconi (1874/1937) in 1895 invented the radio, or more precisely, the wireless telegraphy using radio waves

Although other scientists of his time as the Serbian-born American Nikola Tesla or the Russian Alexander Stepanovič Popov conducted similar experiments in the same years, Marconi's experiments were the first to prompt applications of practical use and commercial scale

“Because of the war Dazzi worked with numerous interruptions on the truncated pyramid stele, until in 1952, at the height of a crisis of dissatisfaction, he broke all the plasterboards. Once he was given the job back for the involvement of the Marconi family, he began all alone, even without the help of a rough-hewer, and he completed the work in 1957. He drew the figures in charcoal on the marble rocks, then lowering the bottom plate in order to bring out the contour line. The representation, divided into 'Songs' - the 'Joy', the 'Dance', the 'Harvest', the 'Flood' and so on - celebrates the universality of the medium that unites all peoples of the world, including even animals. It is as one of the great medieval encyclopedias interpreted, however, with a completely modern spirit” (Maria Antonietta Picone Petrusa - Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani Treccani)