Il Porcellino (Italian "piglet") is the local
Florentine nickname for the bronze fountain of a
boar. The fountain figure was sculpted and cast by
Baroque master
Pietro Tacca (1577–1640) shortly before 1634,[1] following a marble Italian copy of a
Hellenistic marble original, at the time in the Grand Ducal collections and today on display in the classical section of the
Uffizi Museum. The original, which was found in Rome and removed to Florence in the mid-16th century by the
Medici, was associated from the time of its rediscovery with the
Calydonian Boar of
Greek myth.[2]
Tacca's bronze, which has eclipsed the Roman marble that served as model,[3] was originally intended for the
Boboli Garden, then moved to the Mercato Nuovo in
Florence, Italy; the fountain was placed originally facing east, in via Calimala, in front of the pharmacy that by association gained the name Farmacia del Cinghiale (Italian for "boar"). To gain more space for market traffic it was later moved to the side facing south, where it still stands as one of the most popular features for tourists. The present statue is a modern copy, cast in 1998 by
Ferdinando Marinelli Artistic Foundry and replaced in 2008, while Tacca's bronze is sheltered in the new Museo Stefano Bardini in
Palazzo Mozzi.[4]
Visitors to Il Porcellino put a coin into the boar's gaping jaws, with the intent to let it fall through the underlying grating for good luck, and they
rub the boar's snout to ensure a return to Florence, a tradition that the Scottish literary traveller
Tobias Smollett already noted in 1766,[5] which has kept the snout in a state of polished sheen while the rest of the boar's body has
patinated to a dull brownish-green.[citation needed]
Il Porcellino appears in the 2001 film Hannibal when Chief Inspector Rinaldo Pazzi (
Giancarlo Giannini) cleans his hands in the fountain.
The statue is also seen briefly in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002) as Harry Potter and Ron Weasley climb the Hogwarts staircase after crashing into the Whomping Willow, and again on the same staircase during the flashback scene where Tom Riddle speaks to Albus Dumbledore. It also appears in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows –Part 2 (2011) in the Room of Requirement.[citation needed]
^The commission, from
Cosimo II de' Medici, dated to 1621 (Piero Torriti, Pietro Tacca da Carrara, 1975:39, noted in Haskell and Penny).
^Haskell, Francis; Penny, Nicholas (1981). Taste and the Antique : the Lure of Classical Sculpture, 1500-1900. New Haven: Yale University Press.
ISBN0-300-02913-6.
OCLC6863945.