Porcellino

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Well worn snout of the Il Porcellino in the Mercato Nuovo, Florence, Italy
Well worn snout of the Il Porcellino in the Mercato Nuovo, Florence, Italy

Il Porcellino (Italian "piglet") is the local Florentine name for the bronze fountain of a boar Il Cinghiale in the Mercato Nuovo in Florence, Italy. The fountain figure was sculpted and cast by Baroque master Pietro Tacca (1577 –1640) in 1612, following a marble Italian copy of a Hellenistic marble original, at the time in the Grand Ducal collections of the Uffizi, but which has since been lost or destroyed. Visitors to Il Porcellino place a coin in the boar's bronze mouth and rub the boar's snout for luck, a tradition that has kept the snout in a state of polished sheen while the rest of the board's body has patinated to a dull brownish-green. Copies of the sculpture can be found around the world.

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