Dioskurenbrunnen
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The Dioskurenbrunnen ( Italian : Fontana dei Dioscuri ) is a fountain in the old town of Rome on the Piazza del Quirinale in front of the Quirinal Palace , the official residence of the Italian President.
The fountain now consists of a round basin and is flanked to the right and left with the statues of the eponymous Dioscuri Castor and Pollux, who keep two emerging horses in check. The bronze reins have not been preserved, however. Between them stands the Obelisco del Quirinale .
The Quirinal hill is popularly called Monte Cavallo (horse hill) because of the monumental horses .
history
The 5.6 meter high statues of the Dioscuri with their horses may have come from a temple of Serapis that was once located nearby . However, they were found in the thermal baths of Constantine .
Between 1469 and 1470 Pope Paul II had the monumental sculptures restored. 1585, were used as part of a first well, at the instigation of Pope Sixtus V in the visual axis for Porta Pia set. From 1780 Pope Pius VI. redesign the square by the architect Giovanni Antinori . He had the obelisk, which originally stood at the entrance of the Augustus Mausoleum , erected on Quirinalsplatz in 1786 and flanked by the Dioscuri.
In 1818 another fountain was added on the initiative of Pope Pius VII . The architect Raffaele Stern used a granite fountain basin that comes from the Roman Forum .
See also
literature
- Olivia Ercoli, Ros Belford and Roberta Mitchell: Rome . Dorling Kindersley, Munich 2007, ISBN 3-928044-41-9 , p. 158.
Web links
Remarks
- ↑ Stefan Geppert: Castor and Pollux: Investigation of the representations of the Dioscuri in the Roman Empire (= Charybdis. Vol. 8). Lit, Münster 1996, p. 65 f .; Stefan Geppert: The monumental Dioscuri groups in Rome. In: Ancient plastic. Delivery 25, 1996 pp. 121-150; here: pp. 133–147.
Coordinates: 41 ° 53 ′ 56.8 " N , 12 ° 29 ′ 12.1" E