The Pigna - ancient Roman bronze Pine cone in the Vatican - Rome 2016 — eriktorner

The giant bronze pine cone (Pigna) once decorated a fountain in Ancient Rome next to a vast Temple of Isis. There water flowed copiously from the top of the pinecone. The Pigna was moved first to the Old Basilica of Saint Peter, where Dante saw it and employed it in the Divina Commedia as a simile for the giant proportions of the face of Nimrod.[1] In the 15th century it was moved to its current location, the upper end of Bramante's Cortile del Belvedere, which is now usually called in its honour the Cortile della Pigna, linking the Vatican and the Palazzo del Belvedere. There it stands today under Pirro Ligorio's vast niche at the far end, flanked by a pair of Roman bronze peacocks brought from Hadrian's mausoleum, the Castel Sant'Angelo.