Fontana delle Boccacce

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Fontana delle Boccacce by Giuseppe Manetti, 1796
Prato del Quercione
Parco delle Cascine (Cascine Park)
Florence, January 2024

“In 1785 the Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo Habsburg Lorraine commissioned the architect Giuseppe Manetti (1761 - 1817) to renovate the park and build some buildings, as the Lorraine family intended to use it to organize parties, shows and various celebrations. The ‘Fontana delle Boccacce’, so called for the masks from which the water came out, was built in the ‘Prato del Quercione’ (the oak, ‘quercia’, which gave the meadow its name, is no longer there, it has dried up). The fountain has the shape of a classical temple, with an octagonal base and bricks and masonry pilasters, a small dome top covered in scaled tiles ending in a short column with a Corinthian capital. These classic little temples of romantic inspiration, became fashionable. They were used as fountains, wells or gazebos, and populated the gardens of the Florentine aristocracy throughout the 1800s. At the time the fountain was built, cows were still grazing freely in the meadow and thus found themselves using the most elegant drinking trough a cow could ever see. In fact, its original name was ‘Abbeveratoio del Quercione’ (big oak drinking trough). In 1809 Elisa Baciocchi, Napoleon Bonaparte's sister, who became Grand Duchess of Tuscany for a few years, opened the park to the public and the cows were evicted along with the cheesemakers. The whole area, which was finally bought by the Municipality of Florence in 1917, became a place for walks, picnics and sport and the ‘Fontana delle Boccacce’, a reference point for romantic dates. It brings a smile now to imagine the place surrounded by thirsty cows, happily mooing.” (La Fontana delle Boccacce, Leonardo da Vinci Art School)