Obelisco Agonale
The Obelisco Agonale is a 16.55 m high Roman obelisk. It rises above Bernini's four rivers fountain in the center of Piazza Navona .
description
One of the inscriptions on the base of the obelisk reads: OBELISCUM AB IMP ANT CARACALLA ROMAM ADVECTUM, i.e. the obelisk brought from Caracalla to Rome was brought from the ruins of the Circus Castrensis to Piazza Navona. In fact, it originally comes from the Temple of Isis of Emperor Domitian ( Iseum Campense ), which was located on the site of today's church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva . It was probably set up by Emperor Maxentius at the beginning of the 4th century in the Circus des Maxentius on the Via Appia . This obelisk was not, as the inscription claims, brought to Rome by Caracalla as booty from Egypt, but was expressly made for the Temple of Isis. It was erected at its current location in 1649 under the rule of Pope Innocent X , who, contrary to tradition, did not have a cross on the top of the obelisk, but the dove with the olive branch, the coat of arms of the Pamphilj family. The old family palace of the Pamphilj (today the Brazilian embassy) is also on the Piazza Navona next to the church of Sant 'Agnese in Agone .
At another point, the basis of NILOTICIS AENIGMATIBUS EXARATUM LAPIDEM is mentioned, which can be translated as the stone described with Nilotic riddles ; This means the Egyptian hieroglyphs . Athanasius Kircher tried in 1650 on behalf of Pope Innocent X a first translation of the inscription of the Obeliscus Pamphilius , which he published in a book of the same name. However, this translation was more of a fantasy, since without the Rosette Stone found in 1799 and the work of Jean-François Champollion, a correct translation was not possible at that time.
See also
literature
- Klaus Bartels: Rome's speaking stones. 2nd edition, von Zabern, Mainz 2001, ISBN 3-8053-2690-4 .
- Eckart Peterich : Rome. 2nd edition, Prestel, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-7913-2043-2 .
- Cesare D'Onofrio: Gli obelischi di Roma. Rome 1967
Web links
- The Roman Obelisks ( Memento from September 19, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
- Obelisco Agonalis (Italian)
Coordinates: 41 ° 53 ′ 56.3 " N , 12 ° 28 ′ 23.1" E