ABSTRACT
This chapter explores three fountains that marked the processional route of the entrata of 1565, two ephemeral wine fountains and Bartolomeo Ammannati's Neptune Fountainin the Piazza della Signoria. The focus on fountains bears particular relevance to Cosimo because of the importance the Duke placed on the control of water, devoting considerable resources to building aqueducts, managing riverways, developing a naval force and strengthening coastal areas. Among the many remarkable structures in the entrata, the wine and water fountains at the Arch of Maritime Empire and the Arch of Happiness or Public Merriment would have stood out in Florence, by virtue of being a genre more common in festival traditions north of the Alps. Fountains of wine and water helped to re-fashion some very different urban spaces during the entrata of 1565. The visual form of these fountains shows Borghini reinterpreting this northern genre by drawing on Florence's ongoing developments in classical revival and in fountain design.
