Monumento ai Caduti di Dogali

The Sovrintendenza Capitolina records that the monument commemorates the 548 soldiers who died at Dogali, in Eritrea, on 26 January 1887, under Lieutenant Colonel Tommaso De Cristoforis, against the Ethiopian imperial forces of ras Alula. It was designed by Francesco Azzurri (1827-1901). The city council resolved on it in February 1887 on the proposal of Ruggiero Bonghi, made in the newspaper L'Opinione, and at the suggestion of the mayor, Leopoldo Torlonia, reused the Egyptian obelisk of Ramses II found in 1883 in Rodolfo Lanciani's excavation of the Iseo Campense. On 9 March 1887 the Giunta sited it in the square in front of Termini station, which the Sovrintendenza says has been named for the Cinquecento ever since. That square is in the neighbouring rione of Esquilino and is not claimed here; the monument stands in the garden between Via delle Terme di Diocleziano and Via Luigi Einaudi, where it was moved between July 1924 and 31 May 1925 for tram works before the Jubilee of 1925, with a new setting by the municipal architect Raffaele de Vico (1881-1969). It was inaugurated on 5 June 1887. The Sovrintendenza gives the obelisk as Aswan granite; Turismo Roma calls it red granite and over 9 metres tall, and adds that its twin is in the Boboli gardens and that its tip was found by chance in 1719 during foundation work at the Biblioteca Casanatense.

The Sovrintendenza Capitolina records that after the Italian conquest of Ethiopia in 1935-36 the Lion of Judah - a gilded bronze sculpture given to the Negus in 1929 by the Societe Technique et Industrielle d'Entreprises for the opening of the passenger service at the Ethiopian capital's railway station - was brought to Rome as war booty. In March 1937 the proposal of Antonio Munoz, director of the Governatorato's antiquities and fine arts division, to place the lion on the base of the Dogali monument was accepted, and the new arrangement was inaugurated on 9 May that year. The city administration decided to remove the sculpture in 1943; it was held at the Antiquarium del Celio until 1970, when it was officially returned to the Ethiopian government.

The Sovrintendenza also records a restoration of the monument and its historic garden between 2024 and 2025, carried out by the Soprintendenza Speciale Archeologia Belle Arti e Paesaggio di Roma under the PNRR.