Fontana Pretoria

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  • Address
    Piazza Pretoria, centro
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Lonely Planet review

Across Via Maqueda is Piazza Pretoria (M013A), a crowd of imposing (and recently restored) churches and buildings that surround the fabulously ostentatious - and, unfortunately, fenced-off - Fontana Pretoria. The fountain dominates the piazza, with its tiered basins rippling out in concentric circles crowded with nude nymphs, tritons and river gods that leap about the water.

Designed by the Florentine sculptor Francesco Camilliani between 1554 and 1555 for the Tuscan villa of Don Pedro di Toledo, the fountain was bought by Palermo in 1573 in a bid to outshine the newly crafted Fontana di Orione installed in Messina.

Proudly positioned in front of the Palazzo Pretorio, the fountain's flagrant nudity and leering nymphs proved a bit much for Sicilian churchgoers attending the grandly formal Chiesa di San Giuseppe dei Teatini, and they prudishly dubbed it the Fontana della Vergogna (Fountain of Shame).