Excerpt from Wikipedia:
Piazza Cavour is the political and economic center of the city since the beginning of the thirteenth century, when it acquired importance with the construction of the palace dell'Arengo.
In the sixteenth century the square took the name of "Piazza del Comune" or "fountain" and underwent important changes: the old town hall was enlarged and at the back was Garampi palace. Between 1615 and 1620 on the west side of the square it was built the Granary public, also called "Building of plenty" or "ovens".
On the square facing the three municipal buildings (Palace Garampi, Arengo Palace and Podestà Palace ), the Teatro Amyntor Galli; in the middle there are the Fontana della Pigna and the monument to Paul V.
The monument to Paul V , in the center of the square from 1614, was built by Sebastiano Sebastiani designed by Nicholas Cordieri as an act of gratitude to the city's Pope Paul V Borghese. In Napoleonic times the figure of the pope was transformed into that of St. Gaudentius, patron of the city, in the fear that the monument could be shot down by the French and the molten image to obtain weapons and guns; in 1938 it was returned to its original form. The statue in bronze, placed on a high marble plinth, depicts the pontiff sitting on a throne adorned with reliefs and decorative elements, with the keys in the left hand and the right hand raised in the sign of blessing.
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Excerpt from Wikipedia:
The Fountain of the Owl is located in the Southwest part of the garden, below the Fountain of Rometta and the Fountain of Proserpina, These three fountains form a single unit of architecture, their terraces connected by stairways, with nymphaeums placed beneath the terraces. The Fountain of the Owl was built between 1565 and 1569 by Giovanni del Duca. Compared with other fountains in the garden, it is very formal, placed on a terrace surrounded by walls with niches, crowned with the white eagles and lily symbols of the d'Este. The fountain itself is a separate structure, entirely covered with polychrome tiles. At the top, above the niche, is the coat of arms of the d'Este, held by two angels. The niche is flanked by ionic columns. Originally it contained the statues of two youths holding a goatskin which poured water into a basin held by three satyrs. The sculpture in the niche, believed lost, was rediscovered during a renovation in 2001–02, hidden under mineral deposits and earth. The architectural elements were intact, but the figures of the youths and satyrs were missing or destroyed.
This fountain also produced music, thanks to an ingenious automaton made by the French organ maker Luc Leclerc, installed in 1566, before the Fountain of the Organ on the other side of the garden. It featured wenty painted bronze birds placed in the niche, posed on two metal olive branches. Each bird sang an individual song, produced by piped water and air. A mechanical owl appeared, and the birds stopped singing; then, at the end of the performance, all the birds sang together. This musical feature was admired and copied in other European gardens, and functioned until the end of the 17th century. It needed constant repair due the action of the water on its delicate mechanism, and by the 19th century were completely ruined. The decorative elements of the fountain were completely restored in the 19030s, and restored again in 2001-2002,
During the restoration work of 2001–02, the workers found some of the original mechanism that produced the bird songs, including the wind chamber, the tubes that moved the air and water, and the machinery that made the owl move. Using modern materials, Leonardo Lombardi was able to make a new version of the old machinery so the birds can sing and move again.
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The twin churches of San Carlo and Santa Cristina were built in order to provide an architectural feature stately enough to close the new Piazza Reale (now Piazza San Carlo). The work of San Carlo began in 1619, but it was not completed until 1834. The bell tower of San Carlo was built in 1779. The façade of Santa Critina was not completed until 1715 by Filippo Juvarra. The polychrome effect of the façade features free-standing columns and superposed orders of concave-convex form. Behind San Cristina is a fountain named Fontana Dora (female), and behind San Carlo is another fountain named Fontana Po (male).
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