Fountain with Arms of Jacopo de' Pazzi

Giuliano da Maiano

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The fountain was made for the courtyard of Jacopo de' Pazzi's Florentine palace. Pazzi family devices, including dolphins, adorn the three points on top of the base. A bulbous fluted stem originally connected the basin to the foot, as seen in a nineteenth-century engraving. In 1478, Jacopo de' Pazzi paid with his life for leading a failed plot to overthrow the rival merchant family of the Medici. Later that year, the architect Giuliano da Maiano petitioned Jacopo's heirs to reimburse himself and his brothers, the sculptors Benedetto and Giovanni, for work done on various Pazzi projects that may well have included the fountain.

European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The fifty thousand objects in the Museum's comprehensive and historically important collection of European sculpture and decorative arts reflect the development of a number of art forms in Western European countries from the early fifteenth through the early twentieth century. The holdings include sculpture in many sizes and media, woodwork and furniture, ceramics and glass, metalwork and jewelry, horological and mathematical instruments, and tapestries and textiles. Ceramics made in Asia for export to European markets and sculpture and decorative arts produced in Latin America during this period are also included among these works.

Metropolitan Museum of Art