Carrara marble and mottled marble, with bronze acorn finial; the elephant with tasseled saddle and carved with bearded grotesque mask heads, acorn-laden oak branches, an eight-pointed star and stack of six bundles. 6 ft. 7 in. x 33 x 17 in. Note: The original of this model stands in the Piazza della Minerva, Rome, near the church of Santa Maria Sopra (above) Minerva. The church was constructed over the site of the ancient Egyptian temple of Isis, mistakenly identified as the temple of Minerva. The group was commissioned by Pope Alexander VII and unveiled in February of 1667. The carved elephant was combined with an Egyptian obelisk excavated in the Piazza. The present model does not carry the inscription from the original. This combination of forms has a complex iconography appropriate for the papal patronage. The obelisk symbolizes the divine rays of the sun and the elephant here symbolizes the earth. The elephant's trunk drinks water which flows through the body and, in conjunction with the sun (obelisk), fertilizes grains which are then "reborn". The theme of rebirth, which was seen in the Egyptian book of the dead, is a cornerstone of the Christian doctrine of the resurrection.