Description
The Fontana Falconieri is the 19th-century fountain in Piazza Basicò, in Messina's historic center, near the Monte di Pietà and the sanctuary of Montalto. Elegant and a little exotic, it combines marble in the Tuscan Renaissance style with cast-iron sea monsters.
It was designed in 1842 by the Messina architect Carlo Falconieri, commissioned by the Senate, for a special occasion: eighteen centuries since the arrival in Messina of the Letter that, according to tradition, the Madonna had handed to the city's ambassadors. It was inaugurated in 1843; in the same years Falconieri was also working on the Teatro Vittorio Emanuele.
The basin, on two steps, has a curious, almost octagonal shape: it comes from crossing a Greek cross with a rotated square. The shape echoed the square it was made for, Piazza Ottagona, today Piazza Filippo Juvarra.
In the center rises a square pillar carved with animals and plant motifs, similar to grotesques. It supports two stacked bowls, smaller toward the top; at the summit, among curling leaves, the jet of water spouts from two facing shells.
In 1846 the fountain gained four pedestals with small basins and as many cast-iron sea monsters, cast in Palermo: bodies of sea creatures with the heads of a lion, a man, a griffin and a dolphin.
Together they seem to represent the living beings of land, sky and sea. The monsters also recall those of the 16th-century Fountain of Neptune. At their base there were water spouts, probably so that citizens could fetch water.
The whole fountain is decorated with classical and marine motifs, acanthus leaves, palms, lotus flowers and water lilies. Behind each monster, a marble lunette carved with acanthus leaves forms a backdrop.
The fountain survived the 1908 earthquake. It was dismantled and the pieces stayed at the Regional Museum until 1957, when it was reassembled on its current site.
It was designed in 1842 by the Messina architect Carlo Falconieri, commissioned by the Senate, for a special occasion: eighteen centuries since the arrival in Messina of the Letter that, according to tradition, the Madonna had handed to the city's ambassadors. It was inaugurated in 1843; in the same years Falconieri was also working on the Teatro Vittorio Emanuele.
The basin, on two steps, has a curious, almost octagonal shape: it comes from crossing a Greek cross with a rotated square. The shape echoed the square it was made for, Piazza Ottagona, today Piazza Filippo Juvarra.
In the center rises a square pillar carved with animals and plant motifs, similar to grotesques. It supports two stacked bowls, smaller toward the top; at the summit, among curling leaves, the jet of water spouts from two facing shells.
In 1846 the fountain gained four pedestals with small basins and as many cast-iron sea monsters, cast in Palermo: bodies of sea creatures with the heads of a lion, a man, a griffin and a dolphin.
Together they seem to represent the living beings of land, sky and sea. The monsters also recall those of the 16th-century Fountain of Neptune. At their base there were water spouts, probably so that citizens could fetch water.
The whole fountain is decorated with classical and marine motifs, acanthus leaves, palms, lotus flowers and water lilies. Behind each monster, a marble lunette carved with acanthus leaves forms a backdrop.
The fountain survived the 1908 earthquake. It was dismantled and the pieces stayed at the Regional Museum until 1957, when it was reassembled on its current site.