The Transportation of the Vatican Obelisk

Monsignor Benedetto Giustiniano, Treasurer General, presently Cardinal.
Monsignor Innocentio Malvasia, Clerk of the Chamber, and President of the Streets.
Monsignor Bernardino Piscina of good memory, formerly Commissary General.
Monsignor Giovanni Pelicano, Senator of Rome.
And the Illustrious Lords Conservators:
Domenico Giacobaccio.
Hortensio Celso.
Giulio Panfilio.
Signor Gasparo Sanguigna, Prior of the Caporioni A historic administrative title for a head of a Roman district.
And furthermore the Magnificent Lords Giovanni Pietro Muti and Horatio Stati, Masters of the Streets.
The Magnificent Signor Girolamo Altieri, deputy of the Roman People.
The Magnificent Signor Fabio Amodeo, Commissary of the Trevi Fountain.
The Magnificent Signor Petruccio, Fiscal of the Roman People.

In the first discussion held by these gentlemen in this first congregation, it was declared and concluded that, in order to examine and understand this business well, and the end that was desired to bring such a beloved relic to safety, they should have all the learned men, Mathematicians, Architects, Engineers, and other valiant men who could be found called, so that everyone could state his opinion regarding the execution of such an enterprise; for, having discoursed at length among themselves about the methods they judged could be taken, they remained not fully satisfied with any for the reasons narrated above. To this effect, they ordered the second congregation in the same place twenty-five days later to give time to many valiant foreign men who were flocking to Rome from various places to show the strengths of their wit regarding a thing so desired by our Lord, and almost by the whole world. The intention of his Holiness having been known much earlier, various men had arrived in Rome, drawn by the fame of such a work, so that in the aforementioned second congregation, which was on the eighteenth of September following, there appeared from the aforementioned professions about five hundred men from various countries. Some came from Milan, others from Venice, part from Florence, Lucca, Como, and Sicily, and even from Rhodes and Greece; among whom were also some Friars, and each had brought his invention, whether in drawing, in models, or in writing. Others explained their opinion by word of mouth, and the greater part of them concurred in this: to transport the Spire standing upright, judging it a most difficult thing to lay it down on the ground and to return it to being upright again, frightened, I believe, by the size and weight of the machine, perhaps believing it to be of greater ease and safety to lead it straight in the intermediate movement than in the other three movements of lowering, dragging, and raising it again. Some others there were who wanted to carry not only the Spire standing upright, but also the Pedestal and the Base together. Others wanted it neither upright nor laid on the ground, but hanging at forty-five degrees to the horizon, which is commonly called at half-air. Others showed the method of lifting it, some with a single lever in the manner of a balance, others with screws, and others with wheels. I brought my wooden model with a lead Spire inside, proportional to the ropes, pulleys, and small machines of the same model that were to lift it; and in the presence of all those gentlemen of the congregation and the aforementioned Masters of the art, I raised that Spire and lowered it in an orderly fashion, showing in words, thing by thing, the reason and the foundation of each of those movements, just as it happened later in effect. Now, having exquisitely considered and pondered the discourses, drawings, and structures of each of us, and having disputed much, in the end, this conclusion was reached: that the method of moving and transporting the Spire, which I discovered...