|
Elephant Fountain
The Elephant Fountain () is a monument located in the center of Piazza del Duomo, Catania, Piazza del Duomo in the Sicily, Sicilian city of Catania, designed by architect Giovanni Battista Vaccarini between 1735 and 1737. Its main element is a black basalt statue of an elephant, commonly called (), which has become the emblem of the city of Catania. Structure The Elephant Fountain was created by Giovanni Battista Vaccarini, an architect from Palermo, as part of the rebuilding of the city of Etna after the January 11, 1693 earthquake. Most scholars believe that Vaccarini was inspired by Gian Lorenzo Bernini's ''Elephant and Obelisk'', a similar structure in Rome's Piazza della Minerva. However, other possibilities exist; an elephant surmounted by an obelisk with a ball on top is documented in the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, page 38, (Venice, 1499) attributed to Francesco Colonna (writer), Francesco Colonna. The plinth consists of a white marble pedestal located in the center o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Catania - Fontana Dell'Elefante 03
Catania (, , , Sicilian and ) is the second-largest municipality on Sicily, after Palermo, both by area and by population. Despite being the second city of the island, Catania is the center of the most densely populated Sicilian conurbation, which is among the largest in Italy. It has important road and rail transport infrastructures, and hosts Catania Airport, the main airport of Sicily (fifth-largest in Italy). The city is located on Sicily's east coast, facing the Ionian Sea at the base of the active volcano Mount Etna. It is the capital of the 58-municipality province known as the Metropolitan City of Catania, which is the seventh-largest metropolitan area in Italy. The population of the city proper is 297,517, while the population of the metropolitan city is 1,068,563. Catania was founded in the 8th century BC by Chalcidian Greeks in Magna Graecia. The city has weathered multiple geologic catastrophes: it was almost completely destroyed by a catastrophic earthquake in 1169 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
