Obelisco Flaminio, Rome

The Obelisco Flaminio is an ancient Egyptian monument rising in Piazza del Popolo. Carved from Aswan granite under Pharaoh Seti I, it was finished and erected at Heliopolis by Ramesses the Second. Augustus brought it to Rome after conquering Egypt, placing it in the Circus Maximus.

After Rome’s collapse, it broke apart and disappeared beneath mud in the ruined circus. Pope Sixtus the Fifth had it raised here in the late sixteenth century. At the pedestal, notice the stone lions and circular basins: Giuseppe Valadier added them during a restoration ordered under Leo the Twelfth.

The shaft alone measures twenty-four metres; with its base and cross, it reaches thirty-six and a half metres. This pillar has travelled from a sun temple, through imperial spectacle and ruin, into the life of Rome’s grand piazza.