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Ultimo aggiornamento: Sept. 23, 2024

The ancient fountain in front of the Hotel Dieu - Nadia Faure

There are two monumental sixteenth-century fountains that can be encountered while walking along the road that crosses the historic center of Salbertrand.

The first one, in Piazza San Rocco, at the top of Via Roma, has an octagonal basin, with a rounded column with three spouts; under a series of hanging arches, it bears the construction date carved in Roman numerals and Gothic characters: 1525.

The second one, halfway through the town (Medierä), is characterized by a rectangular basin, decorated with hanging arches and dated 1524. The octagonal column emerging from the water, made of brecciated limestone of an unusual pink color, is surmounted by a cup with three spouts for the water, bearing carved among the decorations the symbols of power of the time: a crenellated castle, a fleur-de-lis, a dolphin. It is one of the most beautiful in the Upper Valley in the dolphin period due to its imposing and refined nature and testifies to an unrepeatable economic prosperity.
It was reproduced and placed at the entrance of the Medieval Village of Valentino, in Turin, for the 1884 General Italian Exhibition, based on the project of the Portuguese architect Alfredo d'Andrade.

Behind the fountain is the Hotel Dieu, a historic building, now owned by the Management Body of the Protected Areas of the Cottian Alps and included in the ecomuseum itinerary, a refuge for pilgrims in medieval times, transformed into a hospital during the great plague of 1629.

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