Fontana del Nettuno

ci vediamo al Nettuno ('I'll meet you at Neptune') common Bolognese saying

Piazza Nettuno, in the heart of Bologna between the Palazzo Comunale and the Palazzo del Podestá, is graced with the virile and vaguely outrageous Fountain of Neptune, where a very out-of-place sea god has, as the Bolognese say, ‘abandoned the fishes to make friends with the pigeons’.

The fountain, the first public one in Bologna, was commissioned by Pope Pius IV and finished in 1566, designed by Tommaso Laureti of Palermo and embellished with sculptures by Giambologna (who despite the name wasn’t a Bolognese at all, but Jean Boulogne from Flanders; he spent most of his life in Florence, but this is the work that made his reputation).

In early 2017 Nettuno made the headlines when Facebook found a photo of the statue too sexually explicit and banned it (and felt silly afterwards). Had Giambologna had his way, ‘Il Gigante’, as Neptune is familiarly known, would have been even better endowed, but the Curia said no. So instead the sculptor adjusted the pose so that if you look up at the statue from a certain angle (stand in front of the Sala Borsa with your back to Via Indipendenza), Neptune's thumb looks just like an erection.