While walking around the Eternal City, one will often find an obelisk in the center of a piazza or in front of a church. Although seemingly out of place, Rome is actually home to more of these ancient Egyptian monuments than any other city in the world. These monolithic pyrimidal stones that stretch upwards towards the heavens were first introduced in Rome by the Emperor Augustus in the late 1st century BC after the country of Egypt was incorporated into the Empire. The ancient Romans took these obelisks from their native land and erected them in Rome to serve as trophies of Roman conquest, a physical testament of the strength and breadth of the Empire. Moreover, even after the fall of the ancient Romans, the obelisks gained new life as they were claimed by the Popes of the Catholic Church as a means to connect themselves back to the glory of imperial Rome. For this reason, some obelisks such as the one that currently stands in from of St. Peter’s Basilica were moved and adorned with a crucifix. Altogether, the presence of the obelisks in Rome adds another layer that even outdates the ancient Romans themselves to a city that already possess such a rich history.
Relavent quote from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Marble Faun:
“They saw, too, the red granite obelisk, oldest of things, even in Rome, which rises in the center of the piazza, with a fourfold fountain at its base. All Roman works and ruins (whether of the empire, the far-off republic, or the still more distant kings) assume a transient, visionary, and impalpable character when we think that this indestructible monument supplied once of the recollections which Moses and the Israelites bore from Egypt into the desert.” (pg 87)