Fontana di Pantaneto - Fontana del Leocorno - Siena - Tuscany

La Fontana di Pantaneto, now known as the Fontana del Leocorno is a public monumental fountain located on Via Pantaneto in Siena.
The first fountain on this site was built in 1457 with money from the city council. The first fountain was no more than an unsightly niche in the wall with a basin. In the niche was placed a carved head of an old lady, called the vecchia di Pantaneto.

In 1807, after refurbishing his nearby Palazzo Sozzini, the aristocrat Vinceslao Malavolti commissioned the architect Agostino Belli to embellish the fountain, and he drafted a neoclassical-style project with Doric columns, a central basin and a group of statues depicting Neptune surrounded by four tritons, sculpted by Antonio Zini. But staining and leaching of the marble led to the degradation of this pompous tableau, and in 1866 a new fountain was ordered from the engineer Girolamo Tarducci. Rejecting artistry, the engineer reformulated the fountain as a functional public water source.

In 1997 the Contrada del Leocorno reconstructed the fountain under the designs of Carlo Nepi as two basins fed by the horns of two modern bronze unicorn (leocorno) heads, cast by the sculptor Francesco Carone. In the center of the niche, surrounded by Doric columns, is a round window, and below a plaque with the shield of Siena, announcing the reconstruction of 1866. Below, a droll mask can also provide water. The fountain's location in a narrow alley and the non-potable nature of the water detract from its potential for both scenography and entertainment. The eclectic ensemble with formal elements and marble basins, but also with playful decorations, seems as confused as the history of its formulations. Its main dignity is found in the intimacy, a short caesura on a street that leads to the Loggia del Papa, which, like this architectural edifice, seems to have lost its purpose, but unlike the current fountain, it is not rudderless in artistic style.

Willem Vandenameele