On Largo Santa Susanna, a small square connecting the area of Piazza della Repubblica (known to old Romans with the former name of Piazza Esedra) and the area around Via Veneto, there is a fountain, built at the end of the 16th Century by architect Giovanni Fontana, brother of the more famous Domenico. This fountain was built upon an order of the great Pope Sixtus V as one of the fountains of the aqueduct built by him on the old pattern of the one built but the Emperor Alexander Severus, and which took the name of the Pope: Felice.
What makes this otherwise ordinary fountain (for Rome's standards) special, even if in a somewhat negative way, is the statue standing in the middle niche, depicting Moses, holding the Tables of the Law, and pointing at the water, in the act of ordering it to spring out of the rock. This is a mistake by the sculptor (Leonardo Sormani, nicknamed "Il Bresciano" since he came from the northen Italian city of Brescia) who did not take into consideration the fact that the episode of Tables of the Law came after the one of the water springing it from the rock.
This mistake, and the non-elegant, non-graceful appearance of the statue, summed to the alleged claims of the sculptor to produce and artwork superior to Michelangelo's masterpiece Moses, that can be found in the church of S. Pietro in Vincoli, made him the target of the mocking of Roman people, who renamed this artwork "The Ridiculous Moses"; this, according to the legend, pushed the uncautious sculptor to suicide.
If the sight of this artwork has disturbed and amused you, I suggest to walk just 30 meters more, on the corner to Via XX Settembre where, inside the church of S. Maria della Vittoria, where the sight of the Ecstasy of St. Theresa by G. L. Bernini will delight you.
Related topic link: http://viewsofrome.blogspot.com/2011/11/michelangelos-moses-romes-non-talking.html
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