ROME — The first Italians to tour the new Rome Italy Temple stopped just inside the front door Monday and began to point and smile at something familiar, even though none had ever been inside a temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints before.
There in a rug in the foyer — and soon they found it throughout the temple in stained glass, in staircase railings and engraved in the floors and walls — was a unique oval motif created by Michelangelo nearly 500 years ago and familiar to most Romans today, one with added symbolism in a Latter-day Saint temple.
"This is from city hall, right?" local Italian politicians and journalists asked excitedly.
"It's very Roman," said Elder Massimo De Feo, an Italian and a General Authority Seventy of the church. "They were smiling because they recognized something that they they could connect to immediately."
The design has meaning beyond the architect's desire to tie the temple to Rome's history, art and architecture.
"I think it's a very nice gesture and gift to the city of Rome to place that symbol in the temple," said Marcello De Vito, president of the Rome City Council. "We are honored to have them bring that symbol into the temple. During the tour of the temple, we learned the oval is a symbol of eternity in your religion. The temple combines this symbol of your religion with a symbol of the city of Rome."
https://www.deseretnews.com/article/900 ... emple.html
I've never heard that before.
Circles and ovals in Latter-day Saint temples evoke eternity because they have no beginning or end, Elder David A. Bednar and Elder Ronald A. Rasband of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles said during Monday's tours of the temple and in a news conference afterward.
"Now (we) have the symbol of eternity in the oval or the ellipse in the Eternal City," Elder Bednar said. "That seems like a very nice alignment to me."
Circles may be a more appropriate symbology than Bednar thinks...
go (a)round in circles
To waste one's time and energy engaging in trivial, aimless, or futile activities and failing to make any progress as a result.
https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/go ... in+circles