Duecento Fertility Imagery for Females at Massa Marittima's Public Fountain

• Autores: Adrian S. Hoch
• Localización: Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, ISSN 0044-2992, Vol. 69, Nº. 4, 2006, págs. 471-488
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • A study of a fresco representing a phallus-tree surrounded by birds and women in the 1265 Fonte novo public fountain in the Tuscan hill town of Massa Marittima, Italy. This late-medieval secular fresco was discovered during restoration of the fountain in the 1990s and soon became known as the Tree of Fertility. It complemented the sculptural program of the fountain, which sought to ward off the evil eye while explicitly promoting human fecundity through iconographic references to such themes as feminine protection of a fecund source. A Teutonic archetype for this iconography is suggested by the provenance of extant examples of phallus-trees, which exhort fertility for a private, enclosed audience; here, this meaning was set among a broader civic program, possibly of noble Ghibelline patronage because of the inclusion of the black imperial Ghibelline eagle in the iconography. This iconography bridges two diverse European cultural traditions while conjoining classical with Christian beliefs on procreation.