This obelisk, under 5.5 m, is attributed to the nearby Iseum of the Domitanic era, discovered in 1655 excavations. It was re-erected atop Bernini’s elephant sculpture and inaugurated in 1667 for Pope Alexander VII in Piazza della Minerva.
This content is brought to you by The American Institute for Roman Culture, a 501(C)3 US Non-Profit Organization.
Please support our mission to aid learning and understanding of ancient Rome through free-to-access content by donating today.
Join our free newsletter to receive more ancient Rome content, lecture and Masterclass invites, travel course news and more:
Cite this page as: Ancient Rome Live, The American Institute for Roman Culture, “Bernini (Elephant) Obelisk“. Last modified
May 25, 2026. https://ancientromelive.org/bernini-elephant-obelisk/
Created by The American Institute of Roman Culture, published on
October 8, 2019 under the following license: Creative Commons: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike. This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon this content non-commercially, as long as they credit the author and license their new creations under the identical terms. Please note that content linked from this page may have different licensing terms.
