The Tigris in Belvedere Wall Fountains
A closer study of the drawing of the Tigris Wall Fountain, however, reveals the naturalism of the setting devised by Michelangelo. The niche is conceived as a rocky cave which, according to Vasari, was carved from the pale greenish, stratified marble known as "cippollaccio." The treatment of the water is particularly interesting. It does not issue in a formal, single jet from the urn of the river god, but trickles from his rocky bed in irregular rivulets into the sarcophagus, from which it overflows into a small basin in the form of a fluted shell at the base of the wall fountain. This undoubtedly fed the outlet of the fountain, a shallow, rocky pool beneath the sarcophagus, from which crawl two lifelike turtles, which incidentally serve as supports at the corners of the sarcophagus. At Florence, too, the reclining river god proved a popular subject for the decoration of the recess of the single niche wall fountain, to which its horizontal lines were well adapted.
Since there was no supply of ancient garden statuary as at Rome, the sculptors carved their own figures, copying the classical style and recumbent pose of the Roman examples, but adding attributes appropriate to the local streams. The earliest examples recorded at Florence were modelled for the colossal temporary fountains constructed by Montorsoli, Tribolo, and Raffaello da Montelupo on the occasion of Charles the Fifth's visit to Florence, representing the local Arno and the Rhine, Danube, Bagradas, and Hiberus, the four latter symbolical of the emperor's far-reaching dominions. From Vasari's description of the attributes and recumbent position of these lost river gods it is clear that they followed the ancient types; but he does not mention their setting. Fortunately we have more complete information concerning the twin wall fountains of the Arno and Mugnone, which Tribolo erected at the Villa of Castello between the years 1538 and 1547.
These wall fountains, long since destroyed, can be dimly discerned on the lunette of Castello, on either side of the door in the wall at the end of the Garden of the Labyrinth. The indications of their form upon the lunette are too small and too sketchy to reproduce clearly, but a careful study of the lunette in situ reveals two wall fountains of the single niche type, each arched niche being crowned by a pediment and adorned with a reclining figure which pours water from an urn into an elaborate, oblong basin below. The representations upon the lunette are supplemented by the detailed description of Vasari, who tells us that Tribolo himself carved the statues of the two river gods and a relief of Fiesole which decorated the fountain niche of the Mugnone.
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