Fonte Maggiore

The architectural conception of the fountain, consisting of two superimposed polygonal basins surmounted by a bronze bowl with a group of nymphs and griffins, is probably to be ascribed to Nicola. It is much more difficult to separate Nicola's contributions from Giovanni's in the pairs of bas-relief panels that adorn the lower basin and in the symbolic and historical statuettes that stand at the corners of the upper polygon, with its plain panels. Be that as it may, the pervasive pictorialism, resolved in a contained movement that insists more and more on linear values, marks the ultimate, and most coherent, point of arrival of Nicola's language, free of every encumbrance of tradition and, with evocative power, the true creator of the “Italian vernacular” in sculpture.