Rambles in Rome / An Archæological and Historical Guide to the Museums, Galleries, Villas, Churches, and Antiquities of Rome and the Campagna

by S. Russell Forbes

THE OBELISK

surmounts a fountain. This obelisk and the one in the Piazza Minerva were erected as pairs in Rome. They stood before the Temple of Isis and Serapis in the Campus Martius. There is a small relief in the Villa Ludovisi, representing in its background a temple with four Ionic columns, and to the left an Egyptian obelisk. In the foreground, to the left, is the figure of Minerva, fronting a reclining female figure holding a vessel full of ears of corn (Isis?). By her side is Cupid, and at their back a figure holding something in a spread-out cloth. May not the temple in the background represent the Temple of Isis and Serapis?