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The Sorrow and the Pitti

The Silenius Fountain, at the back of the Pitti Palace, below the Boboli Gardens, not far from the Grotta del Buontalenti. It's just down the path from the Kaffehaus (which is, by the way, the ideal spot for viewing the whole of Florence).

The Pitti Palace was begun by a fifteenth century banker, Luca di Buonaccorso Pitti, who commissioned Brunelleschi to do the job. Brunelleschi, always too busy working on that huge dome across the Arno, handed it off to his student Luca Fancelli -- who, likewise, dropped the ball. In the middle of the next century, another banker -- this time from the Medici family --, Cosimo the First, took it over for his wife, Eleanor of Toledo, and finished it in Grand Ducal style.

Sculptures of turtles turn up in odd locations all over Florence*, and this one's chubby little satyr was modeled after Cosimo's court jester, Morgante. The statue has practically nothing to do with the little history lesson, above -- and even less with the Sanscravat story about G.W.'s party. The good Doctor WILL digress, won't he...

but Morgante is kinda' cute, yes?

*There are four bronze turtles supporting each of the two pylons in the Piazza Santa Maria Novello.

The pylons marked the turning points of the Medici horse races held in the piazza.

No doubt, the turtles were more examples of ironic Medici wit.

Copyright 2006 by Gary Allen

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