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Fontana del Porcellino

Beneath the Loggia del Mercato Nuovo (on the side facing the Borsa Merci), which was built around 1550 as a place to sell luxury objects and valuable cloths (now a Florentine souvenir market), there is the Porcellino fountain. In actual fact, it is not a porcellino (piglet) but a wild boar, which was sculpted by Pietro Tacca in 1612, who copied it from a Greek marble original now on display in the Uffizi.
Tacca's statue was originally located in front of the nearby antique pharmacy the name of which, unsurprisingly, is Farmacia del Cinghiale.

Picture by Sandro Santioli
Translated by Jeremy Carden


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