Il Babuino (Fontana del Babuino)

The Sovrintendenza dates it to about 1576 and describes it as a semipubblica fountain, built at the expense of a private citizen, the Ferrara merchant Alessandro Grandi, but for public use, and set in a niche on his palazzetto. It explains the nickname by the figure's ugliness. It was moved left to number 49a in the rebuilding of 1738 by the Boncompagni-Ludovisi, and dismembered in 1877 for sewer works, the Silenus going to the Boncompagni courtyard and the basin to via Flaminia. It was reassembled in 1957 on the opposite side of the street from its original position, to the left of Sant'Atanasio dei Greci. The Silenus is antique, its head does not belong to it, and it has also been identified with the Sabine god Sanco Fidio Semicapro. The street had been via Clementina, opened by Clement VII, before it was renamed after the statue. Of the talking statues, Marforio stands in rione Campitelli and Pasquino in rione Parione.