If you expect all the Roman fountains to display perfect and muscular bodies or mythological characters, then you may be wrong. If the examples given so far were not enough, the Pine Cone fountain is another example of a banal object turned into a unique piece of art!This huge bronze statue, originally located in the Temple dedicated to the Egyptian deity Isis and Serapis, is almost four meters tall, and was found during the middle age in the baths of Agrippa. At that time it was probably even more spectacular, since it was supposed to spout water from the tips of the cone.
Only in 1608 it was placed in its actual location in the courtyard of the Vatican Museums. The pine cone is standing on top of a monumental staircase designed by Michelangelo; to its side two bronze peacocks, akin to the statues of Roman origins from Hadrian Mausoleum. On the background, a huge niche designed by Pirro Ligorio is closing the perspective.
There are many suppositions and metaphorical explanations to the meaning of pine cone in ancient and contemporary times, but they were mostly intended to be symbols of fecundity and regeneration.
An interesting fact is that the pine cone sculpture has been even mentioned in Dante’s Divine Comedy.
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