The Pantheon obelisk or Obelisco Macuteo is an Egyptian obelisk in Rome in Piazza della Rotonda in front of the Pantheon on a fountain. It is one of the 13 obelisks in Rome and one of relatively few ancient monoliths. It is 6.34 m high (14.52 m including its base). [1] [2] [3]
In the Pyramidion - the tip of the obelisk - there are two name cartouches of Pharaoh Ramses II. However, the 6.34 m high obelisk was also considered a work of the Roman period such as the obelisk in Piazza Navona. It stood in antiquity in Emperor Domitian's sanctuary of Isis, i.e. in the immediate vicinity of the Pantheon.
The obelisk forms a pair with the granite stump Obelisco Matteiano in the Villa Celimontana, together they once stood in the sanctuary of Amun-Re in Heliopolis.[1]
It was excavated in 1373 or 1575, and first placed in the Piazza di San Macuto, adjacent to Sant'Ignazio.
In 1711 Pope Clement XI had it set up on a late Baroque fountain in front of the Pantheon. This is recalled by an inscription on the basis of the obelisk: "Clemens XI pont(ifex) max(imus) fontis et fori ornamento anno sal(utis) MDCCXI pontif(icatus) XI" ("Pope Clement XI. to the fountain and the square ornaments in the year of salvation 1711, his pontificate 11.").
An obelisk is a tall, four-sided, narrow tapering monument which ends in a pyramid-like shape or pyramidion at the top. Originally constructed by Ancient Egyptians and called tekhenu, the Greeks used the Greek term obeliskos to describe them, and this word passed into Latin and ultimately English. Though William Thomas used the term correctly in his Historie of Italie of 1549, by the late sixteenth century, Shakespeare failed to distinguish between pyramids and obelisks in his plays and sonnets. Ancient obelisks are monolithic and consist of a single stone; most modern obelisks are made of several stones.
Piazza Navona is a public open space in Rome, Italy. It is built on the site of the 1st century AD Stadium of Domitian and follows the form of the open space of the stadium in an elongated oval. The ancient Romans went there to watch the agones ("games"), and hence it was known as "Circus Agonalis". It is believed that over time the name changed to in avone to navone and eventually to navona.
Saint Peter's Square is a large plaza located directly in front of St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City, the papal enclave in Rome, directly west of the neighborhood (rione) of Borgo. Both the square and the basilica are named after Saint Peter, an apostle of Jesus whom Catholics consider to be the first Pope.
Pigna is the 9th rione of Rome, Italy, identified by the initials R. IX, and belongs to the Municipio I. The name means "pine cone" in Italian, and the symbol of the rione is the colossal bronze pine cone standing in the middle of the homonymous fountain. The fountain, which was initially located in the Baths of Agrippa, now decorates a vast niche in the wall of the Vatican facing the Cortile della Pigna, located in Vatican City.
The year 1711 in architecture involved some significant events.
Piazza del Popolo is a large urban square in Rome. The name in modern Italian literally means "People's Square", but historically it derives from the poplars after which the church of Santa Maria del Popolo, in the northeast corner of the piazza, takes its name.
Filippo Barigioni (1690–1753) was an Italian sculptor and architect working in the Late Baroque tradition.
The fountain in the Piazza d'Aracoeli is a fountain in Rome, Italy, located at the base of the Capitoline Hill, in the little square with the same name.
The Fontana del Pantheon was commissioned by Pope Gregory XIII and is located in the Piazza della Rotonda, Rome, in front of the Roman Pantheon. It was designed by Giacomo Della Porta in 1575 and sculpted out of marble by Leonardo Sormani.
Piazza Barberini is a large piazza in the centro storico or city center of Rome, Italy and situated on the Quirinal Hill. It was created in the 16th century but many of the surrounding buildings have subsequently been rebuilt.
The Obelisk of Montecitorio, also known as Solare, is an ancient Egyptian, red granite obelisk of Psamtik II from Heliopolis. Brought to Rome with the Flaminio Obelisk in 10 BC by the Roman Emperor Augustus to be used as the gnomon of the Solarium Augusti, it is now in the Piazza Montecitorio. It is 21.79 metres (71 ft) high, and 33.97 metres (111 ft) including the base and the globe.
The Robba Fountain, since the first half of the 20th century also known as the Fountain of the Three Carniolan Rivers, is the fountain that stands in front of Ljubljana Town Hall at Town Square in Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia. It was originally made in 1751 by the Italian sculptor Francesco Robba and is one of the city's most recognisable symbols.
The Piazza della Rotonda is a piazza in Rome, Italy, on the south side of which is located the Pantheon. The square gets its name from the Pantheon's informal title as the church of Santa Maria Rotonda.
The Flaminio Obelisk is one of the thirteen ancient obelisks in Rome, Italy. It is located in the Flaminio quarter on Piazza del Popolo.
The Boboli obelisk, previously called the Obelisco Mediceo, is an ancient Egyptian granite obelisk, which was moved in the 18th century from Rome to Florence, where it was erected in the Boboli Gardens.
The Baths of Nero or Baths of Alexander were a complex of ancient Roman baths on the Campus Martius in Rome, built by Nero in either 62 or 64 and rebuilt by Alexander Severus in 227 or 229. It stood between the Pantheon and the Stadium of Domitian and were listed among the most notable buildings in the city by Roman authors and became a much-frequented venue. These thermae were the second large public baths built in Rome, after the Baths of Agrippa, and it was probably the first "imperial-type" complex of baths, with a monumental scale and symmetrical, axially-planned design. While in the sixteenth century the foundations of the caldarium were still visible, nothing else of the structure remains above ground except some fragments of walls incorporated into the structure of Palazzo Madama.
The Temple of Isis and Serapis was a double temple in Rome dedicated to the Egyptian deities Isis and Serapis on the Campus Martius, directly to the east of the Saepta Julia. The temple to Isis, the Iseum Campense, stood across a plaza from the Serapeum dedicated to Serapis. The remains of the Temple of Serapis now lie under the church of Santo Stefano del Cacco, and the Temple of Isis lay north of it, just east of Santa Maria sopra Minerva. Both temples were made up of a combination of Egyptian and Hellenistic architectural styles. Much of the artwork decorating the temples used motifs evoking Egypt, and they contained several genuinely Egyptian objects, such as couples of obelisks in red or pink granite from Syene.
The Vatican Obelisk is an Egyptian obelisk, one of the thirteen ancient obelisks of Rome, located in St. Peter's Square, in Vatican City. It is the only ancient obelisk in Rome that has never fallen.
The Anonimo is our earliest literary source for this obelisk, which had been extracted from the ruins of the Iseum Campense at an unknown date and set up in the small piazza in front of San Macuto at the beginning of the fifteenth century. During the Renaissance, this obelisk (now in front of the Pantheon) achieved an importance far out of scale with its modest size, thanks to its relatively accessible inscriptions.
The first of the two obelisks that Domitian imported to grace his newly completed Iseum in AD 80 is known as the Rotonda obelisk, from the site of its present location. The Italian archaeologist Antonio Nibby (1792-1839) believed that it was a replica made during the Roman period, but it has been shown by later experts to be an original Egyptian monument. It had stood before one of the pylons of the House of Rã at Heliopolis. On the pyramidion are engraved 'the prenomen and nomen of Ramses II, and on each of the faces of the shaft is one column of hieroglyphs giving the titles of this king ... Ramses styles himself "the reverer of those who gave birth to him, multiplier of their days" (Budge 1926: 209). It stands 6 metres high (20ft) and was one of a pair that Domitian set up at the entrances to the Iseum, between the Saepta Julia (the permanent voting enclosure in the form of two monumental porticos, begun by Julius Caesar and completed by Agrippa in 26 Bc) and the Temple of Minerva. The obelisk was found in 1374 during the reconstruction of the Church of St Maria Sopra Minerva, which was built over the ruins of the Iseum. It is said to have been re-sited sometime later near the small Church of San Mauto, on the Via del Seminario, where it stood on its pedestal. There were also some fragments—possibly from the shaft—lying beside it. Why or how it was moved there is not known. Pope Clement XI (1700-21) decided to re-erect it in the Piazza della Rotonda in front of the Pantheon.