Elephant and Obelisk

The Obelisco della Minerva is an Egyptian obelisk in Rome

Description

The obelisk of red granite Minerveo originally stood in the Egyptian city of Sais, where it was built by Pharaoh Psammetichus II. In Rome he was in front of the Temple of Isis ( Iseum Campense ) set up and found again in 1665 in the garden of the Dominican convent of Santa Maria sopra Minerva. Pope Alexander VII Chigi decided in 1667 to set up the obelisk in front of the church of the monastery. The Dominican Domenico Paglia suggested to put him on six small hill, as they are seen in the arms of the Chigi, with a dog on every corner as an indication of the Dominicans, the domini canes (dogs of the Lord). The Pope rejected the plan and commissioned Bernini.

Another masterpiece is the elephant in the Piazza della Minerva, carrying the smallest obelisk in Rome ( 5.47 meters) on his back. Ercole Ferrata created the elephant after a design by Bernini (see Bernini's Elephant ). Meanwhile proposal with the elephants probably goes back to the Roman Hypnerotomachia of Francesco Colonna Poliphili in which an artificial elephant " elephantina machina " occurs with an obelisk and is imaged. As Paglia warned, only with its four legs become the elephant can not carry the obelisk was allowed to under his belly a massive pedestal stand and hid it under a wide, reaching to the ground saddlecloth. The pedestal on which the statue stands, bears the inscription:

That is, mutatis mutandis, the elephant show, that was needed for a robust spirit, to sustain a solid wisdom. The word robust is referring to the oak in the arms of the della Rovere family and of Pope Alexander VII Chigi. Julius II della Rovere had his bankers, the Chigi, allowed to attach the six hills in their coat of arms of the oak della Rovere. Julius II owed ​​the name and arms della Rovere, in turn, his uncle Sixtus IV, who had taken both from a Turin family with which he was not even related.