Fontana del Leone

The fountain of the Leone (Lion) was originally situated in Via di Panico (street number 62) and was moved 60 years ago against the facade of the convent annexed to the church of San Salvatore in Lauro. It consists of a niche reproducing a cave framed by two small pillars with an architrave. The white marble head of a lion comes out from the centre pouring water from his mouth that flows into the small marble pond below. Above is a memorial tablet with an inscription in elegiac couplets dated 1579 that compares the lion, meeker than a goatling from whose mouth flows the clear Acqua Vergine, with the wolf of Campus Martius, milder than a lamb. Both the animals are made meek by the pious dragon, meaning Gregory the Thirteenth Boncompagni (1572-1585), who reigned at that time, whose coat of arms once appeared over the epigraph. As far as the wolf of “Campus Martius” is concerned, the reference is to another epigraph dated 1578 lost today, once placed above a small fountain representing a wolf and situated in Campus Martius in Via della Lupa (She-wolf). Today this epigraph is placed inside the palace situated at Via dei Prefetti number 7.