Most Popular PlacesRandom PlaceListsItinerariesAdd a PlaceDownload the App Sydney’s Philanthropic Bronze Boar The Guthrie Center Huu Nha Basalt Column Waterfall The Nick Weerts Memorial Phone Booth Cryptid Tourism: The Best Museums, Destinations & Festivals Across America 9 days ago How a replica of a legendary Florentine fountain became a tireless fundraiser in the Southern Hemisphere. Along the sidewalks of Macquarie Street, in the shadow of the grand stone arches of Sydney Hospital, sits a striking geographical and cultural anomaly. A bronze wild boar squats above a fountain basin, its snout worn down to a polished, gleaming gold.
Anyone who has ambled through the Mercato Nuovo in Florence will experience an immediate sense of déjà vu: this is an exact 1:1 scale replica of _Il Porcellino_, the famous 17th-century masterpiece sculpted by Pietro Tacca. While the Florentine boar spends its days promising luck and a return trip to Tuscany to passing tourists, its Sydney twin works a far more pragmatic and unusual shift: it serves as a full-time, unsalaried contributor to Australia’s oldest hospital. The arrival of this Florentine icon on the opposite side of the globe stems from a story of nostalgia, battlefield medicine, and family legacy.
In 1968, the Italian Marchesa Clarissa Fiaschi Torrigiani donated the bronze casting—specially produced by the renowned Ferdinando Marinelli Artistic Foundry in Florence—to honor two men in her family: her father, Dr. Thomas Fiaschi, and her brother, Dr. Both men were prominent surgeons at Sydney Hospital and military medical heroes for the Australian forces overseas.
Thomas, who emigrated from Florence in the late 19th century, brought pioneering surgical techniques to Australia alongside a deep passion for Italian culture and winemaking, even founding Sydney's chapter of the Dante Alighieri Society. Positioned right at the hospital’s entrance, the boar's superstitious charm quickly captured the imagination of locals. The ritual requires passersby to rub the boar’s snout—hence the mirror-like shine compared to its dark patina—and drop a coin through the drainage grate below.
Unlike its counterpart in Italy, the coins dropped into Sydney’s Porcellino don't just sit in an ornamental basin. They are collected regularly and funneled directly into the Sydney Hospital Foundation to fund medical equipment and research. For its steady, uninterrupted ability to rally micro-donations for over half a century, hospital staff officially dubbed the statue “The Silent Volunteer,” seamlessly turning a piece of Renaissance folklore into an active engine for public health Get more unusual and extraordinary places each week with the Atlas Obscura Places newsletter.
Your newsletter subscriptions with us are subject to Atlas Obscura's Privacy Policy and Terms of Use. The statue sits directly on Macquarie Street, right in front of the main entrance to Sydney Hospital, a short walk from Martin Place and the Royal Botanic Garden. These bronze sculptures sow whimsy by hamming it up on a pedestrian mall.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
