Forty-eight nude statues bought in Florence, dismantled into 644 pieces and reassembled in Palermo: the Fountain of Shame.
Distance
Area
Piazza Pretoria
Visit
20 min
Entry
Free entry
The story
Made in Florence between 1554 and 1555 by Francesco Camilliani for don Luigi de Toledo's villa, it was bought in 1573 by the Palermo Senate, dismantled into hundreds of pieces and reassembled here. Olympian deities, nymphs, sea monsters, animals and allegories of Palermo's rivers are arranged on concentric basins. The figures' nudity earned it the popular nickname Fountain of Shame.