Senatorial Fountain

The fountain is located on Via Consolato del Mare beside Palazzo Zanca (City Hall). From the date and the six names engraved on seven plaques on the fountain, it can be deduced that it was built in 1615 on a commission from the Messina Senatorial Council. The ancient and beautiful marble fountain, decorated with leaves, beads and shells, consists of a small circular basin, resting on a pedestal, with a pine cone in the center. It is in the center of a recent concrete basin, from which gushes water, surrounded by three steps. It was made by the senators of the time whose names are given inside some cartouches decorating the rim of the marble bowl: Don Franciscus Marullo, Bernardus Moleti, Thomas Zuccarato, Marcellus Cirino, Vincentius De Celis and Franciscus De Judice. The original location of the fountain is unknown; until 1935 it was located in Piazza Palazzo Reale and was moved next to Palazzo Zanca precisely on the occasion of Benito Mussolini's visit to the city on August 10, 1937. It was most likely one of the fountains that decorated the maritime theater of the harbor curtain built in the seventeenth century to a design and plan by Giacomo Maffei.