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Il Porcellino (Italian "piglet") is the local Florence nickname for the bronze fountain of a boar. The fountain figure was sculpted and cast by Baroque master Pietro Tacca (1577–1640) shortly before 1634,The commission, from Cosimo II de' Medici, dated to 1621 (Piero Torriti, Pietro Tacca da Carrara, 1975:39, noted in Haskell and Penny). following a marble Italian copy of a Hellenistic marble original, at the time in the Grand Ducal collections and today on display in the classical section of the Uffizi Museum. The original, which was found in Rome and removed to Florence in the mid-16th century by the Medici, was associated from the time of its rediscovery with the Calydonian Boar of Greek myth. (1981). 9780300029130, Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300029130
Tacca's bronze, which has eclipsed the Roman marble that served as model,Haskell and Penny. was originally intended for the Boboli Garden, then moved to the Mercato Nuovo in Florence, Italy; the fountain was placed originally facing east, in via Calimala, in front of the pharmacy that by association gained the name Farmacia del Cinghiale (Italian for "boar"). To gain more space for market traffic it was later moved to the side facing south, where it still stands as one of the most popular features for tourists. The present statue is a modern copy, cast in 1998 by Ferdinando Marinelli Artistic Foundry and replaced in 2008, while Tacca's bronze is sheltered in the new Museo Stefano Bardini in Palazzo Mozzi.
Visitors to Il Porcellino put a coin into the boar's gaping jaws, with the intent to let it fall through the underlying grating for good luck, and they statue rubbing the boar's snout to ensure a return to Florence, a tradition that the Scottish literary traveller Tobias Smollett already noted in 1766,Smollett, Travels Through France and Italy, 1766, Letter XXVIII, noted in Haskell and Penny. which has kept the snout in a state of polished sheen while the rest of the boar's body has patinated to a dull brownish-green.
The statue is also seen briefly in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002) as Harry Potter and Ron Weasley climb the Hogwarts staircase after crashing into the Whomping Willow, and again on the same staircase during the flashback scene where Tom Riddle speaks to Albus Dumbledore. It also appears in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows –Part 2 (2011) in the Room of Requirement.
In the 1962 film Light in the Piazza, Fabrizio (George Hamilton) pats the boar's snout for luck after buying flowers.
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