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The Elephant and the Law: The Medieval Jewish Minority Adapts a Christian Motif
Beginning of article
(Figures 1-17 omitted)
It was in these pages nearly half a century ago that there appeared a study by William S. Heckscher entitled "Bernini's Elephant and Obelisk." Heckscher's contextual reading of the eponymous monument, erected in 1667 on the Piazza della Minerva in Rome, reveals the intellectual process through which Bernini recast the symbolism of the elephant from its traditional trionfo context to a celebration of divine wisdom. Heckscher's examination of the emblematic and historical sources of the work's "apparently incompatible elements" serves to elucidate the synthesis intended by Bernini in what Heckscher called "this startling combination of baroque elephant and …
