Symbols of Authority: Obelisks, Hieroglyphs, and Catholic Universalism in Baroque Rome

Abstract

Through an interdisciplinary study of the work of Jesuit Athanasius Kircher (1602–1680), the authors investigate the relationship between the cultural policies of the Roman Curia, the Jesuit order, religious diversity, and the aesthetic–spatial configuration of Rome during the early modern age. This paper shares in-depth observations of the recovery of ancient culture and its reworking in a post-reformist Christian age through architectural and spatial elements adopted to endorse the continuity of the ancient past and the Catholic reformistic universalistic aspirations. In this context, Kircher worked to decipher hieroglyphics on obelisks of the Imperial age but from Egyptian times. These defined a specific topography of space as a visual convergence of points: an urban geography of sacral and historical–political value and a connection with the memories of the Roman Empire and the most ancient religions of the ancient times.

1. Introduction: Rome as the Political Centre of Catholic Universalism

Rome has been, since its foundation, a multiethnic and multireligious city. In Latin times, many different groups lived in the city, which was increasing in size and changing its position as the capital of the Roman Empire. This aspect was enhanced due to the way the Latins interpreted their political and religious ways of ruling the people. From the first kings to the last Roman Emperor, the different Roman rulers focused on expressing Rome’s grandeur by building public infrastructures, streets, temples, thermae, basilicas, cemeteries, and many others, which provided them with honor and fame.

This has made the city famous since antiquity for its public buildings and infrastructures, as well as for its beauty. Later, its famous remains, the ruins that were preserved in the centuries to come, were always present and inspiring artists, collectors, and patrons from the Renaissance (Capitelli et al. 2018; Portoghesi 1982; Haskell 1985) to the present time. Rome is not only a matter of cultural appreciation concerning the re-discovery of the Ancient Classics, but it is also a representation of the continuity in the Urbs, imagined as an Eternal City (Pasquali 2001, “Roma antica: memorie materiali, storia e mito”; in Ciucci 2002, pp. 323–48; Nora 1992). Historiography, Urban Studies, Archaeology and History of Art, and cultural studies focused on this huge field of work and are still researching on it, so it is impossible to report it fully here (Pinelli 2001; Fiorani and Prosperi 2000; Ago 2023; Formica 2019; Visceglia 2007; Caffiero 2001). Even after the fall of the Roman Empire, the city maintained a symbolic importance that was led by the Catholic Church. Scholars agree on an intentional connection with the Roman past portrayed by the Catholic Church. This occurred especially after Martinus V ascended to power (1417–1431) and entered Rome on September 1420 with the aim of revitalizing the Catholic religion and enhancing its symbolic and sacral values and reinforcing papal power (Giardina and Vauchez 2016; Vauchez 2001; Montesano 1994). This was an explicit way to show his link to God, as his representative on Earth, and the power of the Catholic Church. This is an effective semiotic narrative that contributed to the legitimation of Papacy, its governance (the Curia), and its centrality. The process initially related to the Christian world, later evolved in an ever more globalized framework. Maurizio Gargano described this phenomenon as the “invention of the Urban Space” (Gargano 2002), and Visceglia defined the new capital as a “ritual City” (Visceglia 2002), underlining the role of the ceremonial in the Papal Court as being involved in the whole urban space.

The new Papacy settled again in Rome, and it has been largely studied by many scholars (Caravale and Caracciolo 1978; Caracciolo 1983; Prodi 1982; Fosi 2007; Formica 2019; Andretta 2001) who have made a constant effort to enrich artistically the city that was, at that time, the capital of the Papal State and the capital of Christianity (Bertelli et al. 1994) and to enrich its symbolic capital and show the Papacy’s power. This was particularly effective in connection with the Jubilees, when many thousands of pilgrims came to visit the city (Fiorani and Prosperi 2000). Nevertheless, we can mention the urbanistic reforms of Giulio II, Sisto V, Gregorio XIII, and many others, who shaped and re-shaped the urban context of the city. Many historians of art and architecture and urbanists focus on these urbanistic and artistic patronage and policies (Fagiolo 2013), which are still attracting people to visit the city.

2. Universalistic Projection and Cultural Leadership

Since its foundation, the Catholic Church has had an “Apostolic” purpose, an objective to spread Christianity to the rest of world with its eschatological perspective of salvation. But after the geographical exploration and the colonization of America in the 16th century, this emerged with a growing awareness. There were New Worlds in which to extend Catholicism and the ideas of evangelizations, new souls to be saved, and new people to be reached.

This occurred paradoxically just as, in Europe and in the Middle East, the position and the influence of the Roman churches were feeble, due to the Ottoman Empire and the Protestant Reformation. So, the discovery of a New World, America, inspired a new eschatological vision and offered new perspectives on Roman Church universalism (Cantù 2007; Visceglia 2013, 2002; Giannini 2013; Pizzorusso 2018, 2022; Merluzzi et al. 2022; Bonora 2001).

In his recent work on the historical role of Rome as a capital city since antiquity to the modern times, Formica identifies many historical “cities” corresponding to the evolution or the different semantic aspects and approaches with which we can examine this never-ending object of research and also corresponding to different diachronic frameworks, starting from the “disputed city” of 754 to the “neutral city” in 2020 (Formica 2019, p. 4; Maire Viguer 2011). During such a long evolution, Rome evolved. It has been changing its role and performing different functions in its relationship with its population, political power, and the symbolic meaning of the space it occupies. Rome has also been defined as “the theatre city” that gives an interesting idea of how much there was a stage for different actors to play there in an international political scene (Formica 2019, p. 100).

Also, in the 17th century, when the political equilibrium seemed to have changed, even during the huge conflict within Christianity, such as the Thirty Years war, Rome could be distinguished as “gran theatro del mondo”, a local and international space for the testing of interconnection and agencies of actors from any continent, multiple religions, and different nationalities (Kubersky-Piredda and Koller 2015).

3. Theatre of Power, Theatre of the World

In 1998, a Special Issue of the Journal “Roma Moderna e Contemporanea”, edited by Maria Antonietta Visceglia and Gian Vittorio Signorotto, was dedicated to La corte di Roma tra Cinque e Seicento: teatro della politica europea (Visceglia and Signorotto 1998). In this study, Mario Rosa argued that Rome could be considered the “theatre of the world” in those years. During the pontificates of Sixtus V (1566–1572), Gregory XIII (1572–1585), and Clement VIII (1592–1605), there were bloody religious wars in France, which had ended with the abjuration of Henry IV. After that, the militant Roman Church of the Counter Reformation returned to play a crucial role in international politics (Rosa 1998, p. 14; 2023) mainly on a European scale, but also in relation to other Asiatic, African, and American areas. Rome then was like a stage on which any nation plays its role, in a scale game that involved each player from the more modest vassal to the most distinguished policy maker, prince, kings (through their ambassadors, procurators, envoys), cardinals, merchants, and financers.

This was also pointed out as a metaphor used in that age in courtier literacy and theatre time (Quondam 1980; Costanzo 1964; Lorant 1992; Argurio 2022): a ‘theatre’, which should be seen from a ‘political’ point of view as a meeting place for the European diplomacies, as a stage for the discussion of European tensions and conflicts, but also for mediations and alliances.

A court system, like the Roman Curia was, was a stage where personal skill was essential in the courtier political dynamics, because the ways in which one ‘appeared’ on this stage were crucial, behind the scenes of which the ‘arcana imperii’ were developed and on which the ‘negotiating’ expertise of an ecclesiastical class was modelled, ‘to make oneself fit for public maneuvers’, as Cardinal Bentivoglio wrote in his Memoirs, which could be considered an exemplary source of an entire era (Rosa 1998, p. 14; Bentivoglio 1934, p. 92).

This universalistic vocation of the Catholic Church during the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries was often in dialogue and in conflict (even in a harsh one) with the other major Catholic power, the Spanish Monarchy, which also aimed to extend its influence, power, and domains. In 2001, Thomas Dandlet wrote a study on The Spanish Rome, but most recent studies have focused not only on the political, courtier, nepotistic, and local Italian elites’ dynamics, but on other aspects, as well as the presence of different nations, a stage on which many actors from many countries play their roles and display their artistic patronage and commitments.

The stage from the Roman Curia was extended not only to the nobles’ families’ palaces and mansions, but to all the city, with the important role that the public ceremonies played; as Visceglia pointed out, Roma was a ritual city (Visceglia 2002). The squares, the streets, and the ruins had an important role in this theatre of the world. The past and its ruins were a part of the symbolic narrative of papal power and its mission for the entire world.

In 2012, Susanne Kubersky-Piredda and Alexander Koller created an interdisciplinary research group Roma communis patria, set up at the Bibliotheca Hertziana with the support of the Max Planck Society. It has been working on the theme of national identity in early modern Rome, investigating the foreign communities present in the city and their collective identities manifested in the architecture and artistic decoration of their churches. Their works relate to Simon Shama, who gave us a useful insight into cultural landscape, mindset, and memory (Shama 1995).

4. Strategies of Growth and Universalism

Another aspect of the Catholic ambition for universalism was that the Roman Church constructed a system of gathering information and strategies for expanding Catholic influence in different areas, including extra European ones. It also had apostolic and evangelization strategies through many different actors and religious orders, and in 1622, the foundation of the Congregatio de Propaganda Fide was a formal act devoted to this purpose (Pizzorusso 2018, 2022; Giannini 2013).

Rome’s great return to the international political scene and its aspiration for universalism, which was programmatically exalted during the years of Clemens VII Aldobrandini (1592–1605), clashed harshly with the reality of the Venetian Interdict, which was destined, in the medium and long term, to bring about a ‘reason of the Church’. This caused an orientation that was less flexible regarding doctrinal and disciplinary problems within the institution and less open to what was happening in Europe in the meantime on the cultural, political, and religious levels. Certainly, the ‘theatre of the world’ had suffered some major difficulties during the pontificate of Paul V Borghese (1605–1621). But Rome as the center of culture still maintained its traditional appeal to men of knowledge, both lay and ecclesiastical, who, as experts and technicians in law or secretaries of cardinals, could find good jobs in the curial structures and in the great reservoir of benefices and pensions that had always been distributed, despite the post-Tridentine discipline, in the Roman curia in the first decade of the seventeenth century.

During this time, Rome, as a city but also as a center of a political and religious power, intensified its role in the context of the aristocracy of Italian and European society. This was effective for the patricians of the city or the families of older nobility, to whom the city offered the chance of a secure career in the bureaucracy of the Church State. Some of those who were often in the nunciatures (diplomatic representation of the Roman Church) were now permanently organized and increasingly in prestige, especially those in Spain, France, or the Empire. The nunciature had become a real advanced school of courtly practices and future careers up to the cardinalate and sometimes even to the Papacy.

Meanwhile, Rome was still attractive as a meeting point of financial interests and operations. It was another ‘theatre of the world’ scene for bankers and men of finance, because it was a safe place, neutral, and sheltered. This was possible due to its mechanisms perfected in spiritual taxation, the stability of exchange rates, and the confidence inspired by its public debt, from those inflationary crises that were affecting the Mediterranean area in those years (Rosa 1998).

Finally, the recognition by the Pope of several new regular orders that had arisen or developed in the post-Tridentine years had a strong practical and symbolic significance: within them, the regular clerics of the mother of God of Giovanni Leonardi, the Scolopi by Giuseppe Calasanzio, and the Theatines of Carlo Carafa (Vanni 2010; Giannini 2013). At the same time, great ceremonies of canonizations were celebrated, with which Pope Ludovisi triumphantly promoted to the honors of the altars in 1622 some of the protagonists of the Church of the last century, founders or reformers of missionary Orders: Ignatius of Loyola, Philip Neri, Teresa of Avila, Francis Xavier, and Peter of Alcantara (Gotor 2004; Merluzzi et al. 2022).

Nevertheless, many instruments were also settled for preparing new missionaries to evangelize new areas in America, Africa, Asia, and Europe too (Pizzorusso 2018) and not only celebrating Jubilees like in 1625, creating new saints like 1622, or founding Propaganda Fide in 1622, but also a grandeur idea of the mission of the Catholic Church and of its salvific mission, obviously considered supported by God.

Jesuits were one of the most relevant actors in this process, but not the only ones, and recent historiography is pointing out the role of all these different contributors (Broggio 2004; Pavone 2004).

Regarding Jesuits, the Collegio Romano was the place where the religious were trained in their mission. We focus on the activity of Athanasius Kircher, one of the most distinguished scholars in the institution, because his attention to gathering information, as well as the naturalistic, historical, linguistic, and cultural traits, comprised a special attitude in his time.

This attitude was no longer a simple restraint attitude of destructing the idolatry of the non-Christian cultures and ethnicities encountered in the different areas, but also a desire to redefine a unique, comprehensive vision of the forces of nature, human cultures and history, and the cosmos, and giving them a sense of being part of a unique teleological (and theological) Catholic draw and vision.

We aim to explore and offer a new enriched perspective on his character, inserting in its universalistic perspective and knowledge and pedagogical project his thoughts, writings, and collection. To do this, we need an interdisciplinary approach and dialogue on many different kinds of sources and scientific branches, as well as the previous important contributions that have been made by Kircher. In this present contribution, we will work on text circulations, allegories, metaphors, and visual explanations. At the same time, we will focus on the uses of objects and spaces, including urban spaces and religious and non-religious spaces (Bertelli et al. 1994).

Dialogue with the presence of the past—and even celebrating its glories—was an important point for historical and doctrinal argumentation for the Catholic Church, who settle in the continuity of the Roman Empire and in a teleological and divine plan. But also, the use of symbols, metaphors, and allegories from biblical and classical tradition and archaeological evidence was extremely relevant. In particular, this is because this evidence had been present in the city since its foundation, and also because the history of the city itself had been a real melting pot of antiquity, in which the presence and the cult of many different cultures and peoples of the Empire had a significant role. A perspective more recently supported by Simon Shama was that of the cultural mindset and memory (Shama 1995); we can simplify this idea as follows: in that city, there had always been a sacral presence, inclusive and open to the different world areas and cultures; this is the reason why God blessed it and its Church, not only because of its salvific message and function, but all the remains, all the memories, all the monuments, and religious places testify it.

In the new urban vision, all these elements were reconfigured and re-signified in a political and iconographical program focused of enhancement of the papal primacy and strengthening the role of the church in a theatrum orbis (Formica 2019, pp. 37, 39, 49), making the city a religious capital of propaganda and religious discourse. Urbanistic reforms, building collections, and arts were organized into a religious narrative which elaborated on the past from Egypt to Judaic biblical references, and Greek and Roman past (Shama 1995; Irace and Vaquero Piñero 2023; Ago 2023, pp. 15–19; Capitelli et al. 2018; Formica 2019, pp. 37–39; Fiorani and Prosperi 2000; Pinelli 2001, pp. XI–XIV, 291–336, 123, 160).

This narrative sustained a significative effort in making an effective strategy of conversion in all areas of the world, such is universalism. At the same time, different “nations” were living in Rome, some of them as diplomatic representatives, others as minorities, and others due to economic issues, but Rome was still a multireligious city (Caffiero 2001, pp. 143–180; Ago 2023, p. 141; Serra, 45, 82 in Millar and Rusconi 2011; Foa and Stow 2000, pp. 557–584; Cabibbo and Serra 2017; Dandelet 2001).

Obelisks have been present in Rome since antiquity; the influence of the exoticism and the richness of Egyptian culture was appreciated by Romans before the conquest of Ptolemaic Egypt by Caius Julius Caesar in 47 B.C. and the integration into the Roman Empire of this rich province by Emperor Octavianus Augustus in 30 B.C. In particular, after the most famous presence of Queen Cleopatra of Egypt in Rome and the building of her notorious and marvelous palace, there were many temples and merchants, and Egyptian presence was very active in the city. Egyptian culture was also very appreciated by European scholars during the following centuries, and during the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and later, especially for its antiquity, exoticism, esoterism, and symbolism.

5. Athanasius Kircher and the Egyptian Obelisks in Rome

If obelisks had been present in Rome since antiquity, the influence of the exoticism and the richness of the Egyptian legacy as well as Athanasius Kircher’s remarkable intellect and ability to synthesize and reinterpret vast amounts of knowledge in service of his faith and ideological convictions found one of their most compelling expressions in his studies of Egyptology. This field of inquiry offered Kircher a unique opportunity to pursue several interconnected goals: framing ancient civilizations within a universal history that affirmed the truths of the Catholic faith, translating systems of symbols, languages, and thought into narratives that celebrated Christian universalism, and engaging with the physical and symbolic landscape of Rome itself.

Two particularly striking examples of Kircher’s engagement with Egyptology are his interpretations of prominent Roman obelisks. The first is the Pamphili obelisk, which, since August 1649, has crowned Bernini’s Fountain of the Four Rivers in Piazza Navona, a work commissioned during the papacy of Innocent X. The second is the obelisk mounted on Bernini’s famous elephant sculpture in front of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, erected in June 1667 under Pope Alexander VII. Through his writings, Kircher sought not only to decode these ancient artifacts but also to align them with a vision of Christian Rome as the rightful heir and interpreter of the wisdom of antiquity.

It is noteworthy that in the context of Rome’s new urban planning initiatives, both obelisks were strategically positioned in or near the former Campus Martius, an area historically associated with their original placement in antiquity. This location also held significant cultural and religious resonance, as it was the site of the ancient Temple of Isis and Serapis. Furthermore, this same quadrant, now the Pigna district, was home to the Roman College, a key center of Jesuit scholarship. The deliberate placement of these monuments thus echoed and celebrated the historical topography of power and influence in the city.

By the time Athanasius Kircher arrived in Rome, the city had firmly established itself as a leading hub of Europe’s artistic and intellectual activity, offering an ideal environment for the interplay of scholarship, religion, and urban symbolism.

The bibliography on the subject is extensive; the two obelisks have been studied in detail, both separately as archaeological finds and in their reinterpretation and reuse within seventeenth-century culture, particularly by Kircher (the bibliography is considerable; see the studies of Heckscher 1947; Godwin 1979; Lo Sardo 2001; Rowland 2001; Marrone 2002; Findlen 2004; Fatica 2011; Fletcher 2011; Stolzenberg 2013; Mori 2015, 2016). It is worth noting that Athanasius Kircher devoted several key works explicitly and comprehensively to the study of Egyptian antiquities, particularly to the enigmatic task of deciphering hieroglyphics. His journey into Egyptology began with Prodromus Coptus sive Aegyptiacus (1636), a pioneering text that included the first published grammar of the Coptic language and marked his initial steps toward understanding Egypt’s ancient legacy.

In 1650, Kircher dedicated Obeliscus Pamphilius (Kircher 1650) to Pope Innocent X during the Jubilee year, offering a detailed analysis of the Pamphili obelisk and further developing his methods of interpreting Egyptian symbolism. This work was followed by his magnum opus, Oedipus Aegyptiacus (Kircher 1652–1654). Originally printed in four sections between 1652 and 1654, it was published as a complete volume in 1655 and represented the culmination of his Egyptological studies, combining extensive research with ambitious attempts to decode hieroglyphs and contextualize them within a Christian framework.

Further contributions included Obelisci Aegyptiaci, nuper inter Isaei Romani rudera effossi, interpretatio hieroglyphica (1666), a detailed analysis of another obelisk discovered among the ruins of the Temple of Isis, and Sphinx mystagoga (Kircher 1676), which offered interpretations of two mummies transported from Memphis to France by a collector.

During his first decade in Rome, Kircher focused on editing and translating important Coptic manuscripts, thus laying the groundwork for his later works. In Obeliscus Pamphilius, he articulated his methods of translation and interpretation, and with Oedipus Aegyptiacus, he aimed to synthesize his research, observations, and translations into a unified and comprehensive portrayal of Egypt’s cultural and intellectual legacy for a contemporary audience. As Findlen wrote:

‘Kircher’s Egypt was a veritable hieroglyph of the world, an ancient civilization of knowledge that contained true wisdom, prisca sapientia, even as it succumbed to the temptations of idolatry. It was the beginning of the forked path of truth and error, containing both the most sublime secrets that God had left humankind and evidence of the deep roots of human folly and arrogance in the face of the divine’.

(Findlen 2004, pp. 31–33)

The public celebration of Kircher’s studies on Egyptology is intertwined with his collaboration with the sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini, especially in two cases: that of the Pamphilus obelisk and that of the Minerva obelisk.

The first one, made of pink granite and now a centerpiece of Bernini’s Fountain of the Four Rivers, originally arrived in Rome during the reign of Emperor Domitian (81–96 CE). Transported from the quarries of Aswan, the obelisk initially bore no inscriptions. Once in Rome, Domitian had it adorned with hieroglyphic carvings and an image of himself flanked by two deities. He placed the obelisk in the Temple of Isis and Serapis, located in the Campus Martius, near the current site of the Church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva. Over time, the monument fell into disrepair, eventually breaking into five large fragments near the Circus of Maxentius.

In the mid-17th century, Pope Innocent X commissioned Bernini to restore the obelisk and relocate it to Piazza Navona. The fragments, discovered in 1647 along the Appian Way, were reassembled as part of Bernini’s ambitious project. Around this time, Athanasius Kircher published Obeliscus Pamphilius, in which he attempted to decode the hieroglyphs engraved on the obelisk’s four sides.

Kircher’s scholarship captured the attention of Pope Innocent X, who invited him to collaborate with Bernini in creating one of Baroque Rome’s most iconic monuments. Kircher’s interpretations of the hieroglyphs and his broader intellectual contributions had a significant influence on Bernini’s vision for the fountain. This connection is evident when comparing the fountain’s design with the frontispiece of Kircher’s Obeliscus Pamphilius, which reflects the symbolic and intellectual importance of the obelisk within its Baroque setting (Ferraro 2014).

The frontispiece conveys a rich allegory, dominated by the figure of Saturn, God of time, who has brought down an obelisk and subdued Fame, now lying prostrate amidst the ruins. At the heart of this scene, Polymathia, embodying Kircher himself, emerges as a symbol of intellectual mastery. She is depicted seated, writing with focused determination. Her posture emphasizes balance and permanence, with one foot placed on a cube to signify stability, while her arm rests on volumes representing the profound knowledge of various traditions, including Egyptian wisdom, Pythagorean mathematics, Greek philosophy, and Chaldean astronomy.

To her side stands Hermes, the divine inventor of sacred writing, offering her a scroll inscribed with the hieroglyphs central to the Obeliscus Pamphilius. This act underscores the transmission of ancient knowledge into the hands of the scholar. Below her, Harpocrates, the god of silence, is positioned with a foot resting on a crocodile—an emblem of mystery and the concealed. His gesture of placing a finger to his lips serves as a cautionary reminder, warning against revealing sacred truths to those unworthy or unprepared to understand them (Bartola 1991, pp. 30–31).

Kircher regarded obelisks and their hieroglyphic inscriptions as repositories of hermetic wisdom, predating but ultimately consonant with Christian revelation. In his view, the ancient Egyptians were pioneers in grasping the cosmic harmony that structured the universe, a profound understanding that underpinned their religious and philosophical systems. For Kircher, these monuments were not merely relics of antiquity but symbolic bridges connecting the esoteric knowledge of the past with the spiritual truths of Christianity.

On the other hand, Bernini approached his work with a different emphasis. As his first biographer observed (Baldinucci 1682, p. 84; but see also Eugenio Lo Sardo’s essay in Findlen 2004, p. 51), Bernini believed that a fountain should convey a clear message, whether literal or metaphorical. This perspective reflects his commitment to creating artworks that were not only visually captivating but also conceptually resonant, ensuring that their meanings could be understood by viewers at both intellectual and emotional levels.

Designed as a striking centrepiece for the 1650 Jubilee, the fountain was created to awe the thousands of pilgrims flocking to Rome. At its heart stands the obelisk, a symbol of the sun, surmounted by the Pamphili family dove, a mark of papal authority. The obelisk rises from a rocky base, representing the Church, while caves at its foundation symbolize human instincts or sin, out of which flow the world’s four great rivers: the Nile, Rio de la Plata, Danube, and Ganges.

While a detailed exploration of the fountain’s design and its myriad interpretations is beyond the scope of this article, its central motif is clear. The obelisk, crowned by the Pamphili dove, acts as a powerful emblem of monarchical authority, linking the grandeur of historical empires to the Pope. In this context, the rivers symbolize global dominion, both secular and spiritual, under the Pope’s dual role as monarch and religious leader. The fountain thus serves as a visual celebration of Catholic universalism, blending artistic achievement with ideological expression.

Kircher’s intellectual framework, however, complicates this reading. His approach is characterized by remarkable complexity, drawing heavily—and often intuitively—on a wide range of sources, including pagan traditions and hermetic philosophy. This layering of influences highlights how his work transcends a purely ideological function, offering instead a rich and multi-faceted interpretation of the past. Indeed, Findlen writes:

‘The Jesuit censors did their best to tone down Kircher’s enthusiastic descriptions of magical, Kabbalistic, and religious practices that were not properly Catholic. They chastised him repeatedly for not taking a sufficiently critical view of his pagan sources’.

(Findlen 2004, p. 33; on the subject of Jesuit censorship of the Oedipus, see the essay of Stolzenberg in Findlen 2004)

But Kircher’s eclectic culture was not easily contained within the limits of a formal orthodoxy, and it is on the basis of the distinctive features of Baroque thought that Kircher’s genius moves between metaphor, analogy, amazement, and the birth of a new scientific perspective.

The second obelisk, known today as the Obelisk of Minerva, was discovered intact toward the end of 1665 in the main garden of the Dominican convent of Santa Maria sopra Minerva. This pink granite monument, inscribed with hieroglyphs on all four sides and measuring just 5.47 meters in height, originally came from the ancient Egyptian city of Heliopolis.

Pope Alexander VII Chigi decided to display the obelisk prominently in Piazza della Minerva. While various architects submitted designs for the base to support the ancient monolith, the Pope ultimately entrusted the project to Gian Lorenzo Bernini.

The discovery of the obelisk and Bernini’s commission presented Athanasius Kircher with an ideal opportunity to showcase his expertise in interpreting hieroglyphs. At the time of the discovery, Kircher was outside of Rome. He instructed his assistant, Jesuit Father Giuseppe Petrucci, to transcribe the hieroglyphs visible on the obelisk and send them to him for study.

However, since one side of the obelisk remained buried, Petrucci was only able to send Kircher the inscriptions from the three exposed sides. Despite this limitation, Kircher began his analysis and hypothesized that the inscriptions were likely repeated on all four sides. Drawing on this insight and observing that the inscriptions mirrored each other in pairs, he accurately predicted the content of the unexposed side. This accomplishment astonished his contemporaries, as it demonstrated his methodical approach and keen understanding of ancient patterns.

Kircher later recounted this episode in his autobiography, highlighting it as a moment of intellectual triumph in his long-standing study of Egyptian antiquities:

‘In truth, since he had taken care to draw only three sides, leaving out the fourth side because of the difficulty of turning the obelisk, I, finishing my examination of the obelisk in its entirety (praise, honour and glory to God!) grasped the whole chain of mysteries hidden in it that not even that fourth side, which was hidden and therefore omitted by the designer, remained hidden from me’.1

(Kircher 1684, p. 70)

Also, his assistant Petrucci, writing one of the Praelusiones ad interpretationem for Kircher’s work Obelisci Aegyptiaci, nuper inter Isaei Romani rudera effossi, interpretatio hieroglyphica, recalled the episode:

‘It happened that only three sides could be drawn, so I, impatient to delay any longer in the execution of what had been commanded me, so imperfectly, did what my servitude required. In the reply made to me by the Father [A. Kircher], to the amazement of those who saw, and of many persons of no ordinary learning, he sent me the fourth side, drawn in his own hand. At such an unexpected sight, stupefied, and curious, I immediately ran to see if it corresponded with the original, and I found that it was the same content, without any sign of variation, or rather, in those places where there were no figures carved, he made up for it by telling me what was missing’.

(Kircher 1666, p. 4)2

The artwork was dedicated to divine Wisdom and had to organically integrate the ancient obelisk with a richly sculpted base to create a monument imbued with deep symbolic meaning. Bernini explored several designs for the plinth before ultimately settling on the solution of an elephant carrying the obelisk on its back.

This choice was likely influenced by Pope Alexander VII himself, who drew inspiration from an illustration in Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (The Dream of Poliphilo), an allegorical novel printed in Venice by Aldus Manutius in December 1499, enriched with 169 woodcut illustrations (Colonna 1499). The narrative follows the protagonist, Poliphilo, as he journeys through a dreamlike, classical landscape in pursuit of his beloved—a metaphor for inner transformation and the quest for Platonic love. Alexander VII was well-acquainted with the book, as evidenced by his personal annotations in a copy now housed in the Vatican Library (Incunabulum Ms. Chigiano II-610) (Partini 2007, pp. 56–61).

Interestingly, the idea of an elephant carrying an obelisk was not entirely new to Bernini. In 1632, he had proposed a similar design for the garden of Palazzo Barberini under Pope Urban VIII, though the project was never realized. Some scholars suggest that Cardinal Francesco Barberini might have originally introduced the concept, inspired by the same woodcut from Hypnerotomachia Poliphili.

What is certain, however, is that Alexander VII played an active role in shaping the monument’s meaning. He personally composed the Latin inscription for the base, articulating the symbolism behind Bernini’s creation. According to the inscription, true Wisdom, represented by the hieroglyph-covered obelisk, must be supported by a strong and capable mind, embodied in the figure of the elephant (Alfuso 2020). This deliberate interplay between classical imagery and Christian allegory reflects the intellectual and cultural ideals of the Baroque era.

The Jesuits and Dominicans were longstanding rivals, and it was in the square dominated by the latter that Bernini, collaborating with Kircher, created the monument. The Dominicans, prominent members of the Holy Inquisition, were openly critical of Bernini’s design, particularly for omitting a cube beneath the elephant’s belly to bolster the structure’s stability. Although Bernini was confident in the structural soundness of his design, he conceded by adding a stone core under the elephant, discreetly concealed by an elaborately carved caparison.

Bernini’s response to Dominican hostility was not without wit. He oriented the elephant so that its back faced the Dominican convent, emphasizing the irreverence by raising its tail and curving its trunk backward. This deliberate positioning symbolically presented the animal’s rear toward the Tribunal of the Inquisition, which, alongside the Congregation of the Index, convened within the Dominican monastery.

6. Conclusions

6.1. Not a Mere Translation

These examples and their historical context vividly illustrate the intricate interplay of politics, religion, literature, artistic patronage, and intellectual production in Baroque Rome. What is particularly striking is how these dynamics unfolded within a compact urban space: the area once encompassing the ancient Campus Martius, which had originally housed both obelisks. Kircher’s interpretation of the hieroglyphs extends beyond mere translation; it represents a reimagining of the urban landscape itself. In this process, every architectural endeavor, every artifact rescued from obscurity, and every element of historical recovery was integrated into the grand narrative of universal history. This approach reflects a broader cultural ambition to weave disparate elements of antiquity into a cohesive ideological and symbolic framework.

If the Baroque can be understood as a particular attitude toward the world, then its various expressions—literary, artistic, intellectual, political, and beyond—must be examined within the broader context of the history of ideas. When and under what conditions can we speak of translation in this context? To what extent can these elements be disentangled, especially when considering the seventeenth century—a period marked by a profound interplay of complexity, contradiction, and convergence? These questions provide insights into the intricate dynamics of an era that endeavored to weave the diverse voices of its time into a cohesive, though multifaceted, narrative.

6.2. The Past and Its Symbols as Tradition of Authority

A strong point of the universalistic vision of the Roman Church was defined by the reconfiguration and reappropriation of the past. The City of Rome had a huge symbolic capital tied with its long history as the capital city of the Roman Empire, then see of the Papal Chair and the Catholic Church, particularly after the Tridentine Council elaborated strategies to endorse its role on a global scale, which included the symbolic use of the past and its evidence present in Rome.

Athanasius Kircher’s works were part of this great vision and were sustained with the most innovative point of view inside the Catholic orthodoxy, of course, but there was a great effort of re-elaborating of the elements from the past and from the present, from different cultures covering different areas of the world, and from different aspects of the earth, minerals, volcanoes, magnetism, stones, sea, and winds, in an effort to connect the natural and physical world as well as the cultural and linguistic world. Egypt, with its ancient culture, hieroglyphs, and mysterious symbolic apparatus, worked as an element in the process of the sacralization of the space, focusing many places in front of important churches (Santa Maria Maggiore, San Giovanni in Lateran, Trinità de’ Monti, Santa Maria sopra Minerva within others) and squares, setting perspectives of new urban spaces for Roman citizens and people coming from all the world.