BERNINI -- Il Peschierone

Speranza

BERNINI undertood no fountain sculpture before the early sixteen-twenties, but by some strange coincidence, his earliest fountain group was imposed upon a setting by FONTANA, an oval pool known as the "PESCHIERA" or "PESCHIERONE" designed in 1579-81 for the garden of the VILLA MONTALTO.

Built on the VIMINAL, the pool is cut into the hill, and is surrounded by a balustrade with a row of ANTIQUE STATUES.

The statues are a rather HETEROGENEOUS company.

They include TWO MERCURIES, an Apollo, two Roman emperors, and some fauns.

They have little in common save their PSYCHOLOGICAL DETACHMENT from the pool.

-----

It was for this setting that MONTALTO comissioned the "NETTUNO E TRITONE" to Bernini.

For Bernini, fresh from the Borghese "DAVIDE", the commission offered an occasion to plan a figure which would perform an ACTIVE ROLE in relation to its site.

He was working at the time on the group APOLLO E DAFNI, whic was drawn from the METAMORPHOSES, and a passage from the METAMORPHOSES supplied him with the inspiration for his fountain group.

The passage describes how, after the flood, GIOVE orders the sea to be recalled.

"THEN NETTUNO," writes OVIDIO,

"called to the sea-god TRITONE, who rose from the deep, and bade him blow on his echoing conch-shell, and refall waves and rivers by his signal."

"TRITONE lifted his hollow trumpet, a coiling instrument which broadens out in circling spirals from its base."

When TRITONE blows upon it in mid-ocean, its notes fill the furthest shores of east and west.

So now too the god put it to his lips, and blew it, sending forth the signal for retreat as he had been bidden.

The sound was heard by ALL THE WATERS that covered earth and sean, and ALL THE WAVES which heard it where checked in their course."

The water entered the pool from the high ground at the further end, and there, on a rocky plinth, Bernini DEPICTED TRITONE blowing his conch-shell at NETTUNO's bidding, and the sea-god thrusting his trident downwards as he controls the waves.