Description
The Elephant Fountain is Catania's best-loved monument: in the middle of Piazza del Duomo, a black lava-stone elephant with white eyes carries an Egyptian obelisk on its back. Locals call it u Liotru, and it has been the city's emblem since 1239.
The fountain itself is actually 18th-century: Giovanni Battista Vaccarini built it between 1735 and 1737, in a Catania that was rebuilding after the earthquake of 1693. You can see it well from the steps around the base, where you can sit and watch the square.
Up close, look first of all at the elephant, carved from a single block of lava, its trunk pointing toward the Cathedral of Sant'Agata.
Then the obelisk, a little over three and a half meters tall, made of granite and covered in Egyptian-style figures that spell out no sensible writing. On the white marble base are the city's two rivers, the Simeto and the Amenano, and from there the water falls into the basin.
Down the elephant's flanks hangs a marble saddle cloth with the coats of arms of Saint Agatha, Catania's patron saint. At the top of the obelisk, under the cross, there is a plaque with the initials MSSHDEPL, "A sound and sincere mind, for the honor of God and the liberation of one's homeland."
Who carved it, and when, nobody knows. In the 12th century the Arab geographer Idrisi found the statue already inside the walls; the earthquake of 1693 broke its legs and trunk, and Vaccarini rebuilt them, adding the eyes and the tusks in white stone.
The name comes with a dark legend. Heliodorus, a nobleman who had fallen from grace and was accused of necromancy, supposedly carved the elephant and rode it from Catania to Constantinople, until Bishop Leo had him burned alive. Historians consider it an invention. Another explanation is more likely: the statue served as the gnomon of the square's sundial, it was "heliotic," in dialect "liotru."
The elephant with an obelisk on its back was not Vaccarini's invention: the image already appears in a book printed in Venice in 1499, the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili. Until 1998 the fountain was enclosed by an iron fence with a small garden; today it is open to the square.
In 1862 it was decided to move the fountain to Piazza Palestro. They had not reckoned with the people of Catania: on May 30 Bonaventura Gravina organized a popular uprising and the move was called off.
The Liotru became the city's official symbol in 1239, by a grant from Frederick II: before then the emblem was Saint George. Today it is on the municipal coat of arms and is the mascot of the local sports teams.
Don't miss
• The obelisk.
• The Simeto and Amenano rivers.
• The saddle cloth with the coats of arms of Saint Agatha.
Did you know?
• Under the Arabs, Catania was called Medinat-el-fil, the "city of the elephant."
• The obelisk was perhaps one of the turning posts of the Roman circus: the other stands in the courtyard of Castello Ursino.
The fountain itself is actually 18th-century: Giovanni Battista Vaccarini built it between 1735 and 1737, in a Catania that was rebuilding after the earthquake of 1693. You can see it well from the steps around the base, where you can sit and watch the square.
Up close, look first of all at the elephant, carved from a single block of lava, its trunk pointing toward the Cathedral of Sant'Agata.
Then the obelisk, a little over three and a half meters tall, made of granite and covered in Egyptian-style figures that spell out no sensible writing. On the white marble base are the city's two rivers, the Simeto and the Amenano, and from there the water falls into the basin.
Down the elephant's flanks hangs a marble saddle cloth with the coats of arms of Saint Agatha, Catania's patron saint. At the top of the obelisk, under the cross, there is a plaque with the initials MSSHDEPL, "A sound and sincere mind, for the honor of God and the liberation of one's homeland."
Who carved it, and when, nobody knows. In the 12th century the Arab geographer Idrisi found the statue already inside the walls; the earthquake of 1693 broke its legs and trunk, and Vaccarini rebuilt them, adding the eyes and the tusks in white stone.
The name comes with a dark legend. Heliodorus, a nobleman who had fallen from grace and was accused of necromancy, supposedly carved the elephant and rode it from Catania to Constantinople, until Bishop Leo had him burned alive. Historians consider it an invention. Another explanation is more likely: the statue served as the gnomon of the square's sundial, it was "heliotic," in dialect "liotru."
The elephant with an obelisk on its back was not Vaccarini's invention: the image already appears in a book printed in Venice in 1499, the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili. Until 1998 the fountain was enclosed by an iron fence with a small garden; today it is open to the square.
In 1862 it was decided to move the fountain to Piazza Palestro. They had not reckoned with the people of Catania: on May 30 Bonaventura Gravina organized a popular uprising and the move was called off.
The Liotru became the city's official symbol in 1239, by a grant from Frederick II: before then the emblem was Saint George. Today it is on the municipal coat of arms and is the mascot of the local sports teams.
Don't miss
• The obelisk.
• The Simeto and Amenano rivers.
• The saddle cloth with the coats of arms of Saint Agatha.
Did you know?
• Under the Arabs, Catania was called Medinat-el-fil, the "city of the elephant."
• The obelisk was perhaps one of the turning posts of the Roman circus: the other stands in the courtyard of Castello Ursino.