PISANO, Nicola
(active 1258-78)

Fontana Maggiore

1278
Bronze and marble
Piazza 4 Novembre, Perugia

Nicola Pisano's Great Fountain ('Fontana Maggiore') at Perugia was completed in 1278 but begun the previous year. It consists of three superposed basins and bears an iconographic programme relating to the origins and history of the city state.

The lowest basin is a 25-sided polygon with 3 twisted columns at the corners. Each side bears two reliefs, representing the Labours of the Months, the Liberal Arts, fables, Romulus and Remus (originals Galleria Nazionale dell'Umbria, Perugia), heraldic beasts, and Old Testament scenes.

The middle, smaller basin stands on short columns; its 12 sides are each divided into 2 by 24 Old Testament figures, personifications (including Perugia, other localities and Ecclesia Romana), and 2 contemporary Perugian officials.

The third basin is of bronze, cast by Rosso Fonditore, and crowned by a group of three women of Classical inspiration, carrying water.

The detailed interpretation of the inscription, which records the names of Nicola and Giovanni as sculptors and Fra Bevignate and Boninsegna as responsible for the work as a whole and the hydraulics, is controversial, but the compact, centralized design, with the three strongly interrelated basins, is clearly in line with Nicola's other works. The subtly modulated modelling of such reliefs as Adam and Eve and the Labours of the Months suggests Nicola's hand, but most of the sculptures were executed by Giovanni, with assistants; he signed the relief of the two eagles, and his style appears in the intense faces and the nervous angularity and springing movements of the figures.