
Michael Lake
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The Fountain of Neptune is a monumental civic fountain located in the Piazza del Nettuno, next to Piazza Maggiore, Bologna, Italy, An example of Mannerist taste of the Italian courtly taste, its construction was commissioned by the Cardinal Legate Charles Borromeo, to symbolize the fortunate recent election of Borromeo's uncle as Pope Pius IV.
The design and assembly of the fountain was completed by the Palermitan architect Tommaso Laureti in 1563 and the fountain was completed in 1565,
An early design by Giambologna, who had submitted a model for the Fountain of Neptune in Florence, but had lost the commission to Baccio Bandinell, the over-life-size bronze figure of the god Neptune was completed and fixed in place around 1566.
Emerging majestically from centre of the fountain, the mannerist figure of Neptune is surrounded by four putti holding dolphins as allegorical representation of he major rivers from the then-known corners of the world comprising the Ganges, the Nile, the Amazon, and the Danube. The figure stretches his left hand in a lordly gesture possibly to placate days which today is interpreted as symbolic exaltation of the new power of the Pope Pius IV.