(52) FONTANA (Domenico), _Della transportatione dell’obelisco Vaticano et delle fabriche di nostro signore papa Sisto V fatte dal cavaliere Domenico Fontana, architecto di sua Santità_.—This is a rare book published in 1590, but a good précis is given by Lebas in his _L’Obélisque de Louxor_ and in GORRINGE, _Egyptian Obelisks_. The obelisk was moved from the Circus of Nero at Rome to the Piazza di San Pietro in 1585, the method being the ‘heroic’ one of lifting it bodily by blocks and tackles. A gigantic tower of wood, known as ‘Fontana’s Castle’, was erected over the obelisk, being made of compound wooden struts of a metre square in section. From the cross-beams of the tower pairs of blocks and tackles were attached at four points along the obelisk, which was protected by matting and planks. The obelisk was first raised sufficiently high, being wedged as well from below, to enable a ‘cradle’, or platform on rollers, to be introduced underneath it. The obelisk was then lowered on to the cradle and pulled to its new site, first down an inclined plane and thence on level ground. The blocks and tackles were worked by a large number of capstans. The erection was done in exactly the reverse way to the lowering. The whole story as translated by Lebas, makes curious reading, and I cannot resist giving a few extracts. He says (_L’Obélisque de Louxor_, pp. 178 et seq.): “Public curiosity . . . . . attracted a large number of strangers to Rome. All roads leading to the square were barricaded, and a _bando_ of the pope, published two days before, _punished by death_ anybody who did not respect the barrier . . . . . On the 30^{th} April, two hours before daylight, two masses were celebrated to {52} implore the light of the Holy Spirit. Fontana, with all his staff, communicated. On the eve of the lowering he had been blessed by the Holy Father. . . . . ” Before the work began, Fontana told his workmen: “The work we are about to undertake is consecrated to religion, the exaltation of the Holy Cross”; thereon everyone recited with Fontana a _pater_ and an _ave_. Gorringe comments on this (_Egyptian Obelisks_, pp. 114 to 117) saying: “A striking scene it must have been and _typical of that curious age_”. If, however, one compares Fontana’s account with that of the erection of the New York obelisk, one is struck, not with the difference, but with the resemblance between the two ceremonies, the later one being undoubtedly more tedious to the spectators, as there were no inquisitors and familiars waiting in a corner, to mete out summary punishment to anyone misbehaving. GARDINER (Dr. Alan), _Egyptian Hieratic Texts_, Part I.—On paragraphs XII, XIII and XIV, some details are given as to the removal of an obelisk from a quarry, the removal of sand from under a colossus during erection and the construction of an embankment of brickwork, set as problems by one scribe to another. The relevant passages are quoted _in extenso_ in sections 28 and 35.