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Piazza Cavour in Sutri: the Little Square with the Spindle Fountain Copied from Viterbo
Piazza Cavour is a compact little square in the historic centre of Sutri (VT), a short distance from the Palazzo Comunale (Town Hall). At its centre is a “spindle” fountain in peperino stone. It is not medieval, though it looks it: craftsman Alfredo Maggini made it in the 1930s, faithfully copying the celebrated Fontana di San Tommaso (St Thomas Fountain) in Piazza della Morte in Viterbo, dating from the 13th century.
An Architectural Signature of the Tuscia
A spindle fountain is the typical form of medieval fountains in the Viterbo region, consisting of a circular basin, a tapered central shaft, four leonine heads from which water flows, an octagonal pinnacle with acanthus leaves and a pine cone at the summit. Viterbo indeed is known as the "city of fountains", and is full of authentic 13th-century examples. The copies scattered across the villages and towns of the Tuscia — like this one in Sutri — are a way of declaring a cultural belonging to the territory.
The Square
This pedestrianised, quiet little square is surrounded by sober and elegant palaces. It lacks the scale and monumental density of the nearby Piazza del Comune — where the town hall and the great arch with the clock tower commissioned by Innocent XIII are positioned — but it is precisely for this reason that it works well: time to rest at a bar, with a few tables, and the sound of water. Those walking the Via Francigena pass through it two hundred metres from the stage stop.
