Firenze - Fontana del Porcellino

Beneath the Loggia del Mercato Nuovo (on the side facing the Borsa Merci), which was built around 1550 as a place to sell luxury objects and valuable cloths (now a Florentine souvenir market), there is the Porcellino fountain. In actual fact, it is not a porcellino (piglet) but a wild boar, which was sculpted by Pietro Tacca in 1612, who copied it from a Greek marble original now on display in the Uffizi. Tacca's statue was originally located in front of the nearby antique pharmacy the name of which, unsurprisingly, is Farmacia del Cinghiale.