For a web site about the obelisks currently standing in Rome
see http://www.romeartlover.it/Obelisks.html

Obelisks in Rome
Most of the obelisks in Rome take the form of four-sided pillars, generally square, which taper to a point at the top. They are often monolithic, i.e. carved from a single block of stone. Obelisks 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 sometimes stood at the entrance to temples, particularly those dedicated to the sun-god. In imperial times, after the conquest of Egypt by Julius Caesar, several obelisks were brought to Rome. 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 with an obelisk visible from a distance outside each one. (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 37 A.D., on a huge ship measuring 104m x 20m. (After it had been unloaded, the ship was filled with concrete and made into a quay for the new port that was being constructed on the northern bank of the Tiber. Part of this boat-shaped quay still survives.)

The obelisk, which weighs 440 tons, originally stood 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, which required 140 horses and 900 men, was accomplished by Domenico Fontana and was recorded in a number of contemporary drawings and a fresco painted in the Vatican Library.

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 "Aigua ae corde!" (Water to the ropes!). The ropes tightened on being wet and the workmen consequently 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 Santa Maria Maggiore 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 Rome obelisks (31 m without the plinth) and is also the oldest. It was made in Egypt 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. It is made of red granite.

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.

Obelisk of Villa Celimontana
This obelisk originally came from Heliopolis and is the twin of the one outside the Pantheon. It was erected on Capitoline Hill in the Middle Ages but subsequently fell and for many years acted as a step at the entrance to the convent of S. Maria in Ara Coeli. In 1582 a nobleman called Ciriaco Mattei had it erected in the gardens of his villa on the Celian Hill. A story relates how a workman had his hand crushed during the raising of the obelisk; Ciriaco Mattei kept him and his family in comfort for the rest of his life.

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 Innocent 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".

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 is 21.79 meters high, excluding the plinth. Like the one in Piazza del Popolo, it 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.) When it was erected in Piazza Montecitorio by Pope Pius VI in 1792, a pierced globe was placed on top through which the sun's rays pass at midday and strike the ground.

Obelisk of the Pincio
On the Pincio Hill, not far from the Belvedere overlooking Piazza del Popolo, stands one of the smaller obelisks, 17.265 meters tall. It is of Roman manufacture and once stood near the funeral monument which the emperor Hadrian erected in honor of his favorite Antinoos. It was found near the basilica of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme in 1570 and first erected outside Palazzo Barberini. It has occupied its present position since 1822.

Obelisk of Via delle Terme di Diocleziano (Baths of Diocletian)
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 carvedhieroglyphics on the obelisks, which were erected in 1840.

Obelisk of Axum
The obelisk used to stand at the south-eastern end of the Circus Maximus. 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. It has now been dismantled and returned to its country of origin.

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.

Source: http://www.inforoma.it/feature.php?lookup=obelisks