The bronze round vessel of the fountain top
with its three bronze statues

At the top of the Fountain there is a bronze round vessel over seven feet in diameter. It supports the three bronze "Nymphs" or, simply and better, the three Women, the work of Giovanni Pisano, the greatest Gothic Italian sculptor. The statues are a figuration of work typically done by women. They are acting out their work of fetching and carrying water in jugs over their heads, with the left arm holding the jug and the right propped on their flanks. Just as women had always done and will continue do for centuries...

Here the fountain comes full circle. From the lower basin where human work—manual and intellectual—is portrayed on marble tablets, to the upper vessel where the most basic necessity of life—water—is delivered by the three women historiated in bronze. Perugia's Fontana Maggiore is not a Gothic cathedral. The human being who raises his/her eyes to its top is not brought to the contemplation of the metaphysical, but beholds only his/her own human nature and human history.

FountainTop View 1 View 2   The Three Women View 1 View 2

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