Column of the Immaculate Conception, Rome

The Column of the Immaculate Conception (Italian: La Colonna della Immacolata) is a nineteenth-century monument in central Rome depicting the Blessed Virgin Mary, located in what is called Piazza Mignanelli, towards the south east extension of Piazza di Spagna. It was placed aptly in front of the offices of the Palazzo di Propaganda Fide (offices for promulgating the faith), now renamed the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples.

The Marian monument was designed by the architect Luigi Poletti, the actual figure atop was sculpted by Giuseppe Obici and commissioned by Ferdinand II, King of the Two Sicilies. In part, he wanted to put closure to the dispute between Naples and the Papal States that had developed in the last century, when Naples abolished the Chinea, a yearly tribute offered to the Pope as ultimate sovereign of Naples.

Since December 1953, Pontiffs have visited the monument annually and offered a bouquet of flowers at the base of the column commemorating the Feast of the Immaculate Conception.

The column was dedicated on December 8, 1857. It celebrated the recently adopted (1854) dogma of the Immaculate Conception. The dogma had been proclaimed ex cathedra in the papal bull Ineffabilis Deus of Pope Pius IX. The structure is a square marble base with statues of biblical figures at the corners that uphold a column of Cipollino marble of 11.8 meters. Atop the column is a bronze statue of the Virgin Mary, sculpted by Giuseppe Obici. The standard imagery of the immaculate conception is used: a virgin on a crescent, atop the world, stomping a serpent (a symbol of the original sin assigned to all humans since Adam and Eve, except the Virgin Mary).

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