The Diana fountain

The Diana fountain is located in Piazza Archimede in Ortigia, Syracuse. It was built in ten months, totally in reinforced concrete, in 1906, by the sculptor Giulio Moschetti (the same who sculpted the Proserpina Fountain in Catania with great success), with the collaboration of his son Mario. The two sculptors replaced the large lamp that stood in the square which was then placed in the central part of Piazza Santa Lucia alla Borgata.

The work is the result of a stylistic eclecticism between classical models of Greco-Roman art and naturalism. It pays homage to the most famous myth of the city of Syracuse, that of the Fonte Aretusa, whose water is ideally combined (albeit with an artificial source) to this fountain.

The monolithic tub, reddish in color, is surmounted on four sides by masks and coats of arms. In the center of it, clearly in a dominant position, on a high cliff-shaped base stands Diana / Artemis with a bow, quiver and a dog; for its representation it is said that a Syracusan woman was used as a model. At his feet is represented the nymph Arethusa at the exact moment in which the goddess Artemis is about to transform her into a spring to be able to withdraw her from the insistent loving attentions of Alfeo, whom we see on the left surprised by the metamorphosis that is about to take place right in front of her eyes . All around them, always inside the basin, we find four sculptural groups of a family of Tritons.

The Triton and his partner with the baby in their arms while riding a pistrice (sea monsters with snake tail) and two teenage Tritons riding two sea horses. These mythical characters represent the sea not by chance, as it is precisely the element where this love story ends.