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Fonte Gaia is situated in the Piazza del Campo. Its name means Fountain of Joy, so called because the residents reacted with joy when they first saw water gushing out of it.
The water had been pumped through underground pipes from the countryside, 25 km away. Jacopa del Quarcia designed the statues that surround the fountain and completed them in 1419. The theme is motherhood and includes statues of the Virgin Mary, Roman matrons and the wolves that raised Romulus and Remus in Rome. In 1858, due to their degradation, the original statues were replaced with an identical series of reliefs.
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