Il Porcellino is the local Florentine nickname for the bronze fountain of a boar. The fountain figure was sculpted and cast by Baroque master Pietro Tacca (1577–1640) shortly before 1634, following a marble Italian copy of a Hellenistic marble original, at the time in the Grand Ducal collections and today on display in the classical section of the Uffizi Museum. The original, which was found in Rome and removed to Florence in the mid-16th century by the Medici, was associated from the time of its rediscovery with the Calydonian Boar of Greek myth.
Pietro Tacca's bronze Porcellino (Museo Bardini)
Well-worn snout of Il Porcellino in the Mercato Nuovo, Florence, Italy
Il Porcellino in Florence
Detail on the base
Pietro Tacca was an Italian sculptor, who was the chief pupil and follower of Giambologna. Tacca began in a Mannerist style and worked in the Baroque style during his maturity.
Giambologna's equestrian bronze of Ferdinando I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany for the Piazza della SS. Annunziata; completed by his assistant, Pietro Tacca.
Quattro Mori: prisoners at the foot of the Monument of Ferdinand I de' Medici, Livorno.
Fountain in Piazza Santissima Annunziata, Florence.
Philip IV of Spain in the centre of Plaza de Oriente in Madrid.