Fountain of Bacchus
by CIOLI, Valerio, Marble
Following Cosimo I’s visit to Rome in 1561, when Valerio gave him a marble statue of Venus (untraced), he and his father were summoned to Florence to undertake the restoration of the Grand Duke’s collection of Classical statuary. Other Medici commissions include the grotesque marble statue of the court dwarf Morgante, depicted nude and seated on the back of a tortoise, which was later adapted as a fountain in the Boboli Gardens (now called the Fountain of Bacchus.