Fontana delle Tette

A small marble statue of a woman, set into a wall in a side passage off Piazza dei Signori, from whose breasts water flows into two basins. Translating awkwardly as "the Fountain of the Tits", it was commissioned in 1559 by the Venetian governor Alvise da Ponte to celebrate the end of a drought, and for centuries it ran with wine on civic feast days.

The current statue is a copy; the eroded original is preserved a few metres away in a glass case in the courtyard of the Palazzo dei Trecento. Easy to walk past without noticing.

things to do sight
A story
On the day a new Venetian podestĂ  was installed in Treviso, the fountain ran red wine from one breast and white from the other for three days, free to anyone with a cup. The custom held from 1559 until the fall of the Venetian Republic in 1797.

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