Piazza della Rotonda, Rome 1927

Louis Conrad Rosenberg rendered this view of the Piazza della Rotonda in Rome as an etching sometime in the first half of the twentieth century. The eye is immediately drawn to the obelisk rising in the center of the piazza, topped with a cross, a fusion of ancient Egyptian and Christian symbols. Obelisks, originally monolithic structures erected by the Egyptians to honor the sun god Ra, were brought to Rome by emperors seeking to associate themselves with the power and prestige of ancient Egypt. This act of appropriation speaks to a desire to capture and re-contextualize a civilization's symbolic capital. The addition of the cross at the summit signifies the superimposition of Christian power onto pagan origins, as if to sanctify or 'redeem' the ancient monument. The obelisk thus becomes a palimpsest of cultural meanings. It reflects the cyclical nature of history, where symbols are continuously reinterpreted and adapted, bearing the weight of collective memory and the imprint of successive civilizations.