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Fountain of Noah's Ark in Anticoli Corrado: Arturo Martini's Sculpture in the Artists' Village
In 1931 the Municipality of Anticoli Corrado commissioned sculptor Arturo Martini to create a fountain for Piazza delle Ville. Martini had close ties with the village in the Aniene Valley: Anticoli had been a favourite destination for artists since the 19th century: its inhabitants posed as models in Roman studios, and the sculptor spent his summers here. The travertine fountain depicts Noah's Ark as a stylised boat from which the heads of animals - lions, elephants, giraffes, serpents - emerge. The work was inaugurated in 1932.
20th-Century Style
The figures are simplified, given geometric lines characteristic of Martini's 1930s style, midway between archaism and modernity. Water flows from the mouths of the animals, and runs into a rectangular basin at the base. The sculpture breaks with the tradition of monumental Baroque fountains: here the language is spare, direct, 20th-century. It is one of the few examples of modern public art in the small villages of Lazio.
The Village and the Civic Museum
Anticoli Corrado stands 508 metres above sea level, perched on a hillside, with stone houses and a medieval layout. The Civic Museum displays works by artists who worked here in the 19th and 20th centuries: paintings, drawings, sculptures documenting the life of the village and its inhabitants as artistic models. Martini's fountain bears witness to the cultural role that Anticoli played in the last century, when it was a living workshop for generations of painters and sculptors.
