The news that Bernini's Elephant in Piazza della Minerva in Rome has been vandalised, reported by this magazine - makes particularly sad reading.
The damage is slight, and can no doubt be repaired, as the broken tusk has been recovered, and though the work in question is not one of the artist's supreme masterpieces, the Elephant with an Obelisk on its back is a famous landmark.
According to legend, the elephant's backside is pointed at the palazzo behind it because the owner of the palazzo, the man who commissioned the work, Fabio Chigi, Pope Alexander VII, refused to pay the agreed price for it. There is no historical truth in this story, but, as the Italians love to say, se non é vero, é ben trovato (if it is not true, it is a good story.) Fabio Chigi, from the famous banking family, is a distinguished Pope who did much to create the Rome we enjoy today. He is also one of two Popes to have lived in Malta, where he was Inquisitor for five years in the 1630's. As such he lived in two beautiful houses, the Inquisitor's Palace in Vittoriosa and the Inquisitor's Summer Palace in Girgenti.
