Elephant and Obelisk

The Obelisco della Minerva is a small Egyptian obelisk just 5.47 metres tall set in front of the Gothic church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva on the Piazza della Minerva. The red granite monolith was raised in the 6th century BC at Sais under Pharaoh Apries, taken to Rome in the 1st century AD and rediscovered in 1665 in the Dominican monastery garden. Pope Alexander VII commissioned Gian Lorenzo Bernini to stage it, and his pupil Ercole Ferrata executed the famous solution in 1667: a life-sized marble elephant carrying the stone on its back. Romans soon nicknamed the ensemble Pulcin della Minerva, the Minerva's chick. Today it is one of Rome's most original public sculptures and visitors usually photograph the elephant between a Pantheon stop and a coffee on the square.