THE LUCKY CHARM PIGLET: IL PORCELLINO

Ok. It's not really a piglet, as you can see in the picture, but Florentine people call him that way instead of wild boar. And another strange thing that you can see in the picture is that the snout is brighter than the other parts of his body. There is a reason and i'll explain it.

The statue is placed in the Loggia del Mercato Nuovo (New Market's lodge), between Ponte Vecchio and Repubblica square (here the map). It's a bronze fountain made around 1634 and it has a special magical power.

The piglet is a very popular attraction in Florence because of a tradition about it. Legend has it that anyone who rubs the snout of the piglet will return to Florence. This is the reason because the snout appears in a sheen golden while the rest of the body is dark: thousand of people, from everywhere in the world, touched it during centuries. But the magical power is bigger than that.

If you follow the correct procedure, the piglet will give you good luck and your desires will come true. What you have to do is

1. rub the snout

2. put a coin (better if it's a heavy one for a good result!) in the boar's mouth

3. leave the coin to fall down in the underlying grating

If you don't get the goal at first time, don't worry! You can try it again and again and again, untill the coin doesn't enter the grating. The money thrown in the fountain is given to charity organizations.

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