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Tale of the Tortoise
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Tale of the Tortoise

12-17 travelogue art 1

12-17 travelogue art 1 By Jim McCloskey

I haven’t called attention to many of what you might call “conventional” fountains in my Travelogues. You know what I mean: the standard sort of bowl fountains with modest flows, bronze sculptures and lots of patina. It’s not that I haven’t come across many that I like and admire during my travels; it’s just that most of their stories seem a bit too similar.

In the case I’ll discuss here, however, there’s an odd tale of déjà vu to tell: Back in July of 1978, while I was in Rome, I sought out fountains just about wherever I walked around the city because it was so unbelievably hot. Even small fountains were islands of coolness under the intense Italian sun.

One of the fountains I encountered looked familiar when I crossed its path: The Fontana delle Tartarughe (seen above) wasn’t s show-stopper by any means, but it was charming and cooling – and challenged me with the nagging sense that I’d seen it before.

Set where there had once been a fountainhead for the Roman aqueduct system, this one had been built in the 1580s as the collaboration of an architect, Giacomo della Porta, and a sculptor, Taddeo Landini. The creatures that lent the fountain its name were added about 80 years later during a restoration project; they were by either Gian Lorenzo Bernini (which would be exciting, as he was a truly great artist and architect) or by Andrea Sacchi, a renowned painter (but not anywhere close to Bernini’s league).

12-17 travelogue art 2 My guidebook, long gone, doubtless told me all of this, and I’m certain the Bernini connection would’ve caught my eye. But what really grabbed me was the translation of tartarughe it offered: This was the “Fountain of the Tortoises” – and I had indeed seen it before, only the last time it had been in a small park on Nob Hill in San Francisco.

About four years before my visit to Rome, I’d spent a week in San Francisco, walking up and down hills and exploring everything I could reach on my happy 18-year-old feet. I’d been to Nob Hill and had walked through Huntington Park and had seen what turned out to be a reproduction (seen just above) of the Fontana delle Tartarughe that had graced the space since 1954.

It was all about the tortoises, both times. They looked a bit silly hanging out over the edge of the large fountain bowl, so when I saw them again in the same absurd posture in Rome years later, it triggered the memories and kicked up a curiosity that made me linger long enough that I checked my guidebook and saw that tartarughe translated to tortoise – and I knew in a flash where I’d see this before.

You can go to Rome to see the original, but to me the San Francisco version has almost as much going for it – other that 450 years of art history atop 2,000 years of Roman hydrological history, of course. Cool in either place, I’d say.

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