Multiple Niche Wall Fountains Were Rare in Florence
Relieved against a tall arched niche of pietra serena stands a marble Perseus wall fountain of heroic size, represented in the act of slaying the dragon. No attempt is made at a naturalistic setting for the fountain; the group is raised upon a formal pedestal of bisbalos above an oval marble basin into which water once flowed from slender metal tubes in the mouth of the monster. The rather baroque character of the consoles ornamenting the pilasters which frame the niche, the profile and grotesques of the water basin, and the brackets upon the pedestal; the mannered, curving lines and momentary pose of the Perseus; and the sculptor's manipulation of the marble to counterfeit the softness of flesh, all imply a date in the last quarter of the sixteenth century. With this tentative date, reached on grounds of the style of the wall fountain, the documentary evidence is in complete accord. This wall fountain originally stood in the Palazzo Salviati, later known as the Palazzo Obelisk, now owned by the Banca del Credito Toscano. After its acquisition by the municipality in 1881, it was for a time set up in the convent of San Salvi."Later he made the Perseus of marble, four and a third braccia high, which is to be seen in the house of Jacopo Salviati, to his great honor." The origin of our figure in the Palazzo Obelisk, and the close agreement of the height of the actual statue, 256 centimeters, with that given by Borghini, four and a third braccia, or about 252 centimeters, make the identification of this water fountain complete.
As Vasari does not mention the wall fountain in his brief account of the young Battista Lorenzi's works in his second edition of 1568, it was probably executed after that year; while a terminus ante quern is established by Borghini's mention of the wall fountain in Il Riposo, published in 1584. The same curving lines and pagan delight in counterfeiting soft flesh appear in Battista Lorenzi's figure of Painting, at the left of Michelangelo's tomb in Santa Croce, long believed to represent the art of Sculpture, because of the bozzetto which the figure holds, and therefore wrongly given to Valerio Cioli. The wall fountain seems to have been comparatively rare in Florence, where the freestanding fountain form with rich sculptural decoration was always more popular. For the more elaborate development of this type of wall fountain we must turn to Rome, where the addorsed fountain, because of its architectonic character, always enjoyed a particular vogue. Yet, strangely enough, the earliest Roman wall fountains of the more elaborate sort to be constructed during the sixteenth century were designed by two Florentine sculptors, Michelangelo and Ammannati. In 1536 Michelangelo designed the present arrangement of the Campidoglio at Rome, with the facade of the Palazzo Senatorio. According to his plan, as known from Duperac's copy of 1569, the triangles formed by the stairs on either side were to be decorated with two ancient statues of river gods recently excavated, while a colossal figure of Jupiter was to fill the central niche. That his plans specified a wall fountain, we know from three jets which appear on Duperac's engraving on each side of the wall fountain. The brushes and palette which the figure also holds prove beyond question that the art represented is painting.
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