Vatican obelisk
Egyptian obelisk in St. Peter's Square, Vatican City / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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.[1][2]
Made of red granite, it has a height of 25.3 meters and, together with the cross and the base (composed of four bronze lions, by Prospero Antichi), it reaches almost 40 meters.
It is of Egyptian origin, devoid of hieroglyphs and comes, according to Pliny,[3] from the city of Heliopolis; it was originally placed in the Forum Iulii of Alexandria in Egypt and was brought to Rome by Caligula in 40 AD, and placed at the center of the Circus of Nero. It remained in this position after the circus fell into disuse, occupied by a necropolis. In the 16th century it was moved next to the Old St. Peter's Basilica, at the Rotonda di Sant'Andrea.