Other Romes

Christian Catacombs and Egyptian Obelisks

Renaissance archaeologists loved Roman culture, but they were also fascinated by Rome's great, mysterious relics of ancient Egypt: the obelisks, some of them inscribed with mysterious hieroglyphs, that Roman emperors had brought across the Mediterranean. One of these relics, at once threatening and magnificent, was still standing by the Vatican; others were discovered underground. Scholars tried to understand their messages and functions. The imperious pope Sixtus V had five of them raised--a job so hard that Michelangelo had refused to undertake it. Once formally exorcised of their evil spirits, the obelisks clearly showed that Christianity had overtaken Rome and Egypt alike in power and glory. Still other archaeologists penetrated the buried early Christian tombs in the catacombs under the city, making adventurous trips into the dark to find a whole lost world of early Christian symbolism and imagery.

Cesare Baronio, Annales ecclesiastici (Annals of the Church)
In Latin, Autograph, ca. 1600
This work is a classic of Counter-Reformation scholarship--an effort to show that the true church had always been Catholic. The manuscript shows that Carlo Baronio inserted his reference to the forged works of the Egyptian prophet Hermes Trismegistus--a glaring error for which he was chastised by the Protestant Isaac Casaubon--into the text of his church history only after he had composed it in draft. The manuscript, with its many corrections and additions, gives a good sense of the scale of Baronio's enterprise as well as of the occasional weaknesses of his research and criticism of sources.
Vat. lat. 5684 fol. 11 recto arch12 TG.20
F. Borromini, Design for Piazza Navona
Seventeenth century
Another obelisk, found outside the city on the Appian Way, became the centerpiece of Baroque Rome's most spectacular space--the Piazza Navona. Borromini's lovely but plain design was rejected in favor of the splendid one by Bernini, one of his most astonishing creations.
Vat. lat. 11258 fol. 200 recto arch14 TG.31
A. Laelius Podager, Record of Discovery of Augustus's Sundial
Iacopo Mazzocchi, 1521
Iacopo Mazzocchi's first printed collection of Roman inscriptions was re-used by many scholars as a field notebook. In this copy a Roman scholar gives a firsthand account of how the remains of Augustus's huge sundial were discovered early in the sixteenth century, by a baker digging a latrine. As Pope Julius II had no funds to spare, it was reburied, not to be unearthed until the twentieth century.
Vat. lat. 8492 fol. 21 recto arch15 TG.58

Now turn left to the next room to continue this part of the exhibition. You can also turn back to the beginning of the Archaeology room, or run back to the main hall.