Fontana del Nettuno: Bologna's Neptune Fountain

The Fontana del Nettuno stands where Piazza Maggiore meets the smaller square named after it, Piazza del Nettuno. A muscular bronze Neptune raises one hand over the traffic, trident in the other, while four sirens spout water from their breasts below. Bolognesi just call him il Gigante, the Giant. You can't miss him, and you don't pay a cent to look.

Built

1563–1566

Sculptor

Giambologna (the bronze)

Neptune height

About 3.2 m of bronze

Cost to see

Free, outdoors, always open

What you're looking at

Pope Pius IV commissioned the fountain as a piece of papal muscle-flexing after the Council of Trent. The message was blunt: Neptune rules the sea the way the Pope rules the world. The architect Tommaso Laureti designed the basin and the marble, and the Flemish sculptor Giambologna (Jean Boulogne) cast the figures in bronze. Water still jets from dozens of nozzles built into the dolphins, the cherubs and the four sirens at the base, fed by springs the city tapped centuries ago.

It was a working fountain first and a monument second. For a long time this was a real water source for the neighbourhood, which is why it sits at the practical centre of the old town rather than tucked away in a courtyard.

The Maserati trident

Look at the three-pronged trident in Neptune's left hand. In 1920, when the Maserati brothers needed a logo for their cars in Bologna, one of them, Mario, took the god's trident straight off this fountain. The Maserati badge you see on the road today started right here in Piazza del Nettuno. Locals are quietly proud of it.

The cheeky angle (and the Stone of Shame)

There's a long-running bit of Bolognese folklore about Giambologna having fun at the Church's expense. Stand behind the statue and to the right, on a darker paving stone known as the Pietra della Vergogna, the "stone of shame," and look up at Neptune's outstretched thumb. From that exact spot it lines up with his thigh in a way that is, let's say, not very papal. Whether the sculptor planned it or visitors invented it, half of Bologna will tell you to go and find the angle yourself. It's a free, slightly silly two minutes.

How to visit

You don't book anything and there's nothing to climb. The fountain sits on the edge of Bologna's main square, a 30-second walk from the unfinished facade of the Basilica di San Petronio and about two minutes from the leaning Asinelli tower climb. Restoration work happens from time to time, so on the odd visit you might find the bronze under scaffolding. Check whether it's running before you make a special trip, but most of the year it flows.

Behind the fountain stands the Palazzo Re Enzo and the entrance to the Salaborsa library, where a glass floor reveals Roman ruins underneath. The whole knot of squares here is the obvious place to start a first day in the city.

Combine it with

The fountain takes ten minutes, so pin it to a bigger plan. Walk east into the old market lanes for a snack, duck into the carved-wood anatomical theatre at the Archiginnasio, or wander south to the layered chapels of the Seven Churches. For the bigger picture of why every street here is covered, read up on the UNESCO porticoes and the home of Europe's oldest university.

Hungry afterwards? See where to eat in Bologna for the real tagliatelle al ragù. Need a base in the centre? Compare places to stay near Piazza Maggiore, or check rooms a short walk from the fountain.

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