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Porcellino

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