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Pope Sixtus V and the Obelisks on the Moses

Fountain
Christine Staton

Pope Sixtus V and the Obelisks on the Moses

Fountain[1]
The Fontana dell’Acqua Felice, or Moses Fountain, in Rome has been well-
studied for its role in early modern hydraulic engineering and Pope Sixtus V’s
(Felice Peretti, r. 1585-90) urban renewal program. Its construction brought
a source of potable water to the Quirinal Hill for the first time since antiq-
uity, delivered by the refurbished ancient aqueduct, the Acqua Felice.[2] Two
important details of the fountain’s iconography remain uninterpreted, however.
Atop the attic story, two vertical elements in the form of obelisks flank either
end. Scholars such as Corinne Mandel have noted that these elements resemble
obelisks, but the association needs to be further studied.[3] In this article, I
argue that the two vertical elements atop the attic story of the Moses Fountain
are indeed meant to evoke obelisks and reference Pope Sixtus V’s—the foun-
tain’s patron—programmatic relocation of Egyptian obelisks throughout Rome
as part of his program of urban renewal.
The fountain is rendered in three stories, with a massive sculpture of Moses
striking the rock to bring forth water (Exodus 17) at the center on the ground-
level story.[4] The middle story bears a Latin inscription praising Sixtus’s de-
livery of water.[5] Topping the attic story is a tabernacle adorned with a relief
of two angels presenting Sixtus’s papal coat of arms, capped by a massive cross.
The vertical, obelisk-like elements are found here, on either end of the attic.

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 Though Sixtus V was not the first pontiff to appropriate and relocate Egyp-
tian antiquities in Rome, he recontextualized antiquities on a particularly ex-
travagant scale. Most notably he successfully relocated four massive obelisks
to key locations within the city. These highly visible acts demonstrate Sixtus
V’s interest in appropriating Egyptian antiquities and using them to construct
a message of continuity and Christian authority. Among his work for Sixtus V,
Domenico Fontana (1543-1607), the papal court architect who was also respon-
sible for the design of the Fontana dell’Acqua Felice, engineered the relocation
of four obelisks to strategic points in Rome, all important areas of gatherings
and processions.[6] One obelisk was transported from the Circus of Nero Spina
to Piazza San Pietro in 1586, another from the Mausoleum of Augustus to Pi-
azza Santa Maria Maggiore in 1587, a third from the Circus Maximus to Piazza
San Giovanni in Laterano in 1587-88, and a fourth from the Circus Maximus to
Piazza del Popolo in 1589.[7] Although each obelisk conveyed a distinct message
linked to its new location, Sixtus V appropriated and relocated all of them to
glorify the Church’s triumph over paganism and associate himself with power-
ful Roman emperors who had engaged in similar appropriation and display of
Egyptian spoils.[8] In their new, Christian contexts in front of important Roman
churches, the pontiff claimed these massive Egyptian needles as monuments to
Christianity by exorcising them of their pagan associations.[9] The example of
the obelisk at Piazza San Pietro—the so-called Vatican Obelisk—achieved this
goal spectacularly and set the precedent for the three others that followed.[10]
In anticipation and support of the relocation of the Vatican Obelisk, the
Italian translator and diplomat, Filippo Pigafetta (1533-1604) published On
the History of the Obelisk and the Reason for Moving It in Rome in 1586. The
treatise, dedicated to the pope’s nephew, Cardinal Alessandro Peretti, offers a
history of all the obelisks in Rome, based predominantly on the information
available in Pliny’s Natural History. His text includes the obelisks’ original
locations in ancient Egypt and their respective placements in imperial Rome,
emphasizing the need to relocate and sanctify these pagan monuments.[11] Pi-
gafetta explicitly states that the obelisks in Rome were brought from Egypt
“by various emperors.”[12] Certainly, then, Sixtus V and his intended audience
understood the Egyptian origins and imperial history of the obelisks that he
would so publicly and prominently relocate within Rome.

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 The Vatican Obelisk was transported from the Circus Nero Spina to the Pi-
azza San Pietro, 210 meters, between April and September 1586. Construction
on the Acqua Felice and the Moses Fountain was already underway at this time.
The work was performed in three phases: the obelisk was lowered, transported,
and finally raised in its new location.[13] Enormous crowds gathered to witness
each phase of the process, which was treated like a solemn ceremony; the au-
thorities present demanded silence and deference. Although he was not among
the crowds during the transportation, the pope presided over a ceremony to
exorcise the stone of any pagan spirits once it was installed on its new pedestal
in front of Saint Peter’s Basilica.[14]
In his 1590 treatise, On the Relocation of the Vatican Obelisk, Fontana de-
scribes the relocation of this monument as “removing [the obelisk] from the
opprobrium of the idols to which it had in antiquity been dedicated, canceling
with this the worldly glory of the Gentiles…and consecrating it as the support
and foot of the most holy Cross.”[15] Upon the obelisk’s erection in the Piazza
San Pietro, Sixtus V “baptized” the stone after he had performed the exorcism.
He sprinkled the stone with holy water, using strokes in the form of the cross,
thereby rendering the monument fit to serve the Catholic Church.[16] At this
time, the terminal orb with a cross was installed at the pyramidal top of the
obelisk.[17] Terminal orbs with a cross capped each of the four relocated obelisks
in Rome, as recorded by a medal commemorating these feats, struck in 1590
after all four had been transplanted.[18] The medal bears a portrait of Sixtus V
on the obverse and depicts all four obelisks on the reverse. The programmatic
relocation of the four Egyptian obelisks, all of which predate the completion
of the Fontana dell’Acqua Felice, explains the prominent presence of obelisks
atop the fountain’s attic story, where they recall Sixtus V’s relocation of these
monuments. Fontana’s 1590 engraving of the Fontana dell’Acqua Felice shows
that similar terminal orbs with crosses originally topped the obelisks on the
fountain.
As Anthony Grafton has discussed, through the appropriation of Egyptian
monuments, particularly obelisks, Sixtus V positioned himself in the succession
of the great ancient Roman emperors, especially those who had transported
these objects from Egypt to Rome.[19] Domenico Fontana’s engineering tri-
umph was showcased as having surpassed the ability of the ancients. Period

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reports note that the ancient Romans had employed a far greater number of
men to transport the obelisks than Fontana did, attributing this accomplish-
ment to his novel equipment and more sophisticated methods.[20] The Vatican
Obelisk’s successful relocation contributed to the broader message that under
the leadership of Sixtus V, the Catholic Church had become as powerful and
influential as the Roman empire.[21] This idea was reinforced by Sixtus’s re-
location of three additional obelisks throughout Rome and culminated in his
creation of the Fontana dell’Acqua Felice. Not only do the vertical elements on
the fountain recall obelisks, then, but they are clearly readable as obelisks and
directly refer to Sixtus’s urban renewal program.

References
Burroughs, Charles. “Opacity and Transparence: Networks and Enclaves in
the Rome of Sixtus V.” The University of Chicago Press Journal, no. 41
(2002): 56–71.

Cole, Michael W. “Perpetual Exorcism in Sistine Rome.” In The Idol in the Age
ofArt: Objects, Devotions and the Early Modern World, edited by Michael
W. Cole and Rebecca Zorach, 57-76. Burlington: Ashgate, 2009.

Curl, James Stevens. The Egyptian Revival: Ancient Egypt As the Inspiration
for Design Motifs in the West. London: Routledge, 2005.

Curran, Brian A., Anthony Grafton, Pamela O. Long, and Benjamin Weiss.
Obelisk: A History. Cambridge: Burndy Library, 2009.

Fontana, Domenico. Della trasportatione dell’obelisco Vaticano et delle fab-

riche di nostro Signore Papa Sisto V, fatte dal Cavallier Domenico Fontana
,architetto di sva santita, Libro Primo. Rome: Appresso Domenico Basa,
1590.

Grafton, Anthony. “Obelisks and Empires of the Mind.” The American Scholar
71, no. 1 (2002): 123–27.

Mandel, Corinne L. “The Lateran Palace Fresco Cycle.” PhD diss., University

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 of Toronto, 1991.

Marder, Tod A. “Sixtus V and the Quirinal.” Journal of the Society of Archi-
tectural Historians 37, no. 4 (1978): 283-94.

Pigafetta, Filippo. Discorso di M. Filippo Pigafetta d’intorno all’historia della

agvglia, et alla ragione del muouerla. Rome: Appresso Bartolomeo Grassi,
1586.

Notes. Unless otherwise noted, all translations are mine.

[1] This article is an excerpt from my master’s thesis “The Nectanebo Lions on
the Fontana dell’Acqua Felice: Egyptian Revival in the Rome of Sixtus V,”
written in 2020 for Syracuse University in Florence.

[2] Tod A. Marder, “Sixtus V and the Quirinal,” Journal of the Society of
Architectural Historians 37, no. 4 (1978): 283-94. The refurbishment of the
Acqua Felice was, in fact, one of Sixtus V’s first acts as pontiff.

[3]Corinne L. Mandel, “Lateran Palace Fresco Cycle,” (PhD diss., University

of Toronto, 1991), 159).

[4] Marder, “Sixtus V,” 287.

[5] SIXTVS V. PONT. MAX.PICENVS / AQVAM EX AGRO COLVMNAE

/ VIAPRAENEST. SINISTRORSVM / MVLTAR. COLLECTIONE VE-
NARVM / DVCTSINVOSO. A REVEPTACVLO / MIL XX.A CAPITE
XXII. ADDVXIT /FELICEMQ. DE NOMINE ANTE PONTE.DIXIT. /
COEPIT PONT. AN. I.ABSOLVIT III. Translation from Mandel, “Lateran
Palace,” 160.

[6] Brian A. Curran, Anthony Grafton, Pamela O. Long, and Benjamin Weiss,
Obelisk: A History (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2009), 106; Charles Bur-

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 roughs, “Opacity and Transparence: Networks and Enclaves in the Rome of
Sixtus V,” RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics, no. 41 (2012): 59.

[7] Curran et al., Obelisk,136-37.

[8] Anthony Grafton, “Obelisks and Empires of the Mind,” The American
Scholar 71, no. 1 (2001): 125.

[9] Curran et al., Obelisk, 106.

[10] Curran et al., Obelisk, 134.

[11] Filippo Pigafetta, Discorso di M. Filippo Pigafetta d’intorno all’historia

della agvglia, et alla ragione del muouerla (Rome: Appresso Bartolomeo
Grassi, 1586); Curran, et al., Obelisk, 116-18.

[12] Pigafetta, Discorso.

[13] Curran et al., Obelisk, 116-29.

[14] Anthony Grafton, “Obelisks and Empires,” 125.

[15] Domenico Fontana, Della trasportatione dell’obelisco Vaticano et delle fab-

riche di nostro Signore Papa Sisto V, fatte dal Cavalier Domenico Fontana,
architetto di sva santita, Libro Primo (Rome: Appresso Domenico Basa,
1590), 3. The original Italian reads: “Però si compiacque di dar principio
à così pio desiderio, et ardente zelo con l’Obelisco del Vaticano, che Guglia
volgaramente si chiama, pietra così maravigliosa, traendolla dall’obbrobrio
de gli Idoli, a cui su anticamente dedicata, e cancellando can questo principio
la mondana gloria de’ Gentili, che principalmente consacrarono gli obelischi
e piramidi, stimati li più ricchi e memorabili trofei, alla superstitione de’
Dei loro, e purgando essa Guglia, e consacrandola in sostegno e piede della
santissima Croce…” Translation from Michael W. Cole, “Perpetual Exorcism
in Sistine Rome,” in The Idol in the Age of Art: Objects, Devotions and the
Early Modern World, ed. Michael W. Cole and Rebecca Zorach (Burlington:
Ashgate, 2009), 58.

[16] Michael W. Cole, “Perpetual Exorcism in Sistine Rome,” in The Idol in the

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 Age of Art: Objects, Devotions and the Early Modern World, ed. Michael
W. Cole and Rebecca Zorach (Burlington: Ashgate, 2009), 66; Grafton,
“Obelisks and Empires,” 124.

[17] Grafton, “Obelisks and Empires,” 125.

[18] James Stevens Curl, Egyptian Revival: Ancient Egypt As the Inspiration
for Design Motifs in the West (London: Routledge, 2005), 93.

[19] Grafton, “Obelisks and Empires,” 125.

[20] Curran et al., Obelisk, 134.

[21] Grafton, “Obelisks and Empires,” 125.

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