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L'Eccezione Fá la Regola
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Rome - Upon purchasing aqueduct water rights from the Pope in Rome, it was the custom that one built a public fountain for the benefit of the city as well. While many fountains in Rome were outright Papal commissions, many are of this other kind, built by residents throughout the ages. We can thank this custom if Rome is full of beautiful fountains, delighting visitors and residents alike.
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Today's note's title however, is the Italian maxim which translates as "the exception confirms the rule." And nowhere is this more appropriate than on Via del Babuino, one of the three "prongs" (together with the Via del Corso and Via di Ripetta) of Rome's distinct tridente shopping area.
Although originally called Via Clementia, after Pope Clement VII (1525) and then changed to Via Paolina (Pope Paul III, 1534), it eventually came to be called Via del Babuino. Why? . . . A merchant from Ferrara, Patrizio Grandi, received water rights in the area and so commissioned a fountain, deciding to feature the mythological Silenus, Bacchus' drunk advisor. Either something went horribly wrong (drunk sculptor?) or Grandi was a prankster through and through. Fact is that to this day the fountain remains, unequivocally, the most preposterously ugly affront to anyone's Roman aesthetic sensibility ever! Of course, the Romans immediately nicknamed it il babuino, the baboon, and have loved it ever since.
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--contributed by GB, Editor, Italian Notebook
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