# Fontana del Nettuno [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [MONTORSOLI, Giovanni Angelo]() - Date: 1501-1550 - Technique: Marble ## Commentary The sixteenth-century public fountains in Italy were not constructed in Florence but in other towns, above all at Messina, and the Messina fountains served as a stimulus for the fountain in Florence, not surprisingly because their sculptor was a Florentine, Montorsoli. Montorsoli's second outstanding work in Messina, after the Fountain of Orion \(1550-50\) is the marble Fountain of Neptune \(1553-57\) at the harbour. This consists of a colossal statue of Neptune on a high socle above a basin from which rise the fettered Scylla and Charybdis, the sea monsters of the Straits of Messina. Once again his work introduced a new fountain type, that with a single central figure. At first, the fountain was placed near the harbour; in 1934 - after a series of damages resulted in the replacement of the original statues with replicas - the fountain was moved to the present place. ## Related artworks - [Belvedere Apollo]() - [Blessed Ubaldo Adimari]() - [Charles V]() - [Charles V]() - [Drunken Satyr]() - [Fontana del Nettuno \(detail\)]() - [Fontana del Nettuno \(detail\)]() - [Fontana di Orione]() - [Fontana di Orione]() - [High Altar \(detail\)]() - [High Altar \(detail\)]() - [High Altar]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()