Vera da pozzo

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Bronze “vera da pozzo” (Well-head) by Alfonso Alberghetti, 1559
Courtyard of the Doge's Palace
Venice, September 2013

‘Still, in 1814 there were 5000 well-heads in Venice; in 1856 only 2000. Now only 17 of the earliest or Italo-Byzantine period remain, and nearly half of these are in the hands of antiquity dealers. Venice is always wishing to sell its birthright of art-treasures.’ When describing the Doge’s Palace he does not fail to mention the two bronze well-heads: ‘in the court are two magnificent well-heads (puteali) of bronze, one by Niccolò de’ Conti, Director of the Foundries of the Republic (1556), the other by Alfonso Alberghetti (1559)’. (Venetian well-heads in nineteenth-century taste, Anna Tüskés quoting Venice by Augustus Hare, 1885)

See also: Bronze Well-head