Fontana Pretoria
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The Fontana Pretoria is a fountain in Palermo . It was built in the 16th century on the Piazza Pretoria , which was specially laid out for him .
The fountain, originally commissioned by Naples' Spanish viceroy Don Pedro Álvarez de Toledo for his Florentine villa, was designed by several artists from Florence under the direction and mainly with the participation of the sculptor Francesco Camilliani (a student of Baccio Bandinelli ) . Don Pedro died before it was completed in 1554. His son Luigi Álvarez de Toledo sold the fountain in 1573 to the city of Palermo. In the same year, a square was leveled in front of the Palazzo Pretorio , today's town hall, and the Dominican church of Santa Caterina and the fountain, made up of 644 individual parts, was erected. The construction of the well created by his father was supervised by Camillo Camilliani from 1574 , who stayed in Sicily as an architect and civil engineer.
The fountain with a circumference of 133 meters and a height of 12 meters consists of three concentric basins and a central fountain column, on top of which there is a sculpture of the Genius of Palermo . Stairs lead over the outer basin on four sides to the middle basin. Statues of river gods and nymphs stand and lie by the basins and on the railings of the stairs. Since these are mostly shown naked, they met with rejection from the population for a long time. Parts of the marble statues were repeatedly knocked off. The fountain was thoroughly restored at the end of the 20th century.
literature
- Lia Russo: La Fontana di Piazza Pretoria in Palermo. SF Flaccovio Editore, Palermo 1961.
- Maria Clara Ruggieri Tricoli: Le fontane di Palermo (nei secoli XVI-XVII-XVIII). Linee d'arte Giada, Palermo 1984, pp. 58-84.
- Brigit Carnabuci: Sicily. Greek temples, Roman villas, Norman cathedrals and baroque cities in the center of the Mediterranean (= DuMont art travel guide ). 6th, updated edition. DuMont Reiseverlag, Ostfildern 2011, ISBN 978-3-7701-4385-6 .
Web links
Coordinates: 38 ° 6 ′ 56 ″ N , 13 ° 21 ′ 43 ″ E