Turtle Fountain

The theme of the fountain long preoccupied the patrons and artists of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; in a certain sense it took on the same popular and publicity significance that the erection of the cathedral or the great painting cycle had had in previous centuries. On the whole it was still the architectural structure that was given the greatest importance, but slowly the “invention”, the taste for the picturesque, would lead to pure scenography, to theatre. Landini's sculpture is decidedly subordinate to the architectural effect, yet with great ease and elegance, so much so that Giacomo della Porta's design is radically renewed by Landini's spare sculpture, and the darting youths end up weaving over the geometric stem a new, more fluid architecture.