Latona Fountain-Gardens of Versailles-Palace of Versailles-original-1

The Latona Fountain in the

Gardens of Versailles The Gardens of Versailles (french: Jardins du château de Versailles ) occupy part of what was once the ''Domaine royal de Versailles'', the royal demesne of the château of Versailles. Situated to the west of the palace, the gardens cover so ...

lies in the Latona Basin between the Chateau de Versailles and the Grand Canal. On the top tier, there is a statue of the goddess

Latona In ancient Greek mythology and religion, Leto (; grc-gre, Λητώ , ''Lētṓ'', or , ''Lātṓ'' in Doric Greek) is a goddess and the mother of Apollo, the god of music, and Artemis, the goddess of the hunt.Hesiod, ''Theogony'404–409/ref ...

, mother of the sun and moon gods. The fountain operates three times a week during the high season.

Myth of Latona

The theme of the Latona Fountain is taken from the myth of

(the Roman incarnation of the Greek goddess Leto), as vividly told in Book VI of the ''

Metamorphoses The ''Metamorphoses'' ( la, Metamorphōsēs, from grc, μεταμορφώσεις: "Transformations") is a Latin narrative poem from 8 CE by the Roman poet Ovid. It is considered his ''magnum opus''. The poem chronicles the history of the ...

'' of

Ovid Pūblius Ovidius Nāsō (; 20 March 43 BC – 17/18 AD), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom he is often ranked as one of the th ...

. Latona bore the gods

Apollo Apollo, grc, Ἀπόλλωνος, Apóllōnos, label=genitive , ; , grc-dor, Ἀπέλλων, Apéllōn, ; grc, Ἀπείλων, Apeílōn, label= Arcadocypriot Greek, ; grc-aeo, Ἄπλουν, Áploun, la, Apollō, la, Apollinis, label ...

and Diana by

Zeus Zeus or , , ; grc, Δῐός, ''Diós'', label= genitive Boeotian Aeolic and Laconian grc-dor, Δεύς, Deús ; grc, Δέος, ''Déos'', label= genitive el, Δίας, ''Días'' () is the sky and thunder god in ancient Greek reli ...

, which incurred the hatred of Zeus' consort Juno. She forbade any mortals to give hospitality to Latona and her children, who were forced to wander the earth fleeing Juno's persecution, until at last they came to

Lycia Lycia ( Lycian: 𐊗𐊕𐊐𐊎𐊆𐊖 ''Trm̃mis''; el, Λυκία, ; tr, Likya) was a state or nationality that flourished in Anatolia from 15–14th centuries BC (as Lukka) to 546 BC. It bordered the Mediterranean Sea in what is ...

. A thirsty Latona attempted to drink from a local pond, but the

inhabitants Domicile is relevant to an individual's "personal law," which includes the law that governs a person's status and their property. It is independent of a person's nationality. Although a domicile may change from time to time, a person has only one ...

, obeying Juno's command, waded into the water and kicked up the mud from the bottom of the pond, so that Latona and her children could not drink. Enraged at their treatment of her, Latona cursed the Lycians to live in their pond forever, and they were transformed into frogs as punishment.

History & design

The fountain was begun in 1670 by André Le Nôtre, then enlarged and modified by Jules Hardouin-Mansart in 1686. In 1667 the sculptor brothers

Gaspard and Balthazard Marsy The brothers Gaspard (born 1624 or 1625, died 10 December 1681) and Balthazar Marsy (baptised 6 January 1628, died May 1674) were French sculptors. Originally from Cambrai, they moved to Paris and were employed by King Louis XIV, particularly fo ...

were employed to embellish the basin with statuary. Balthazard created six lead half-human, half-frog sculptures placed around the perimeter of the basin, and between 1668 and 1670 Gaspard created the main statuary group of Latona with Diana and Apollo. The statue was placed on a low foundation of rocks at the center of the fountain, from where Latona faced eastwards toward the palace. Hardouin-Mansart designed a much grander fountain of four oval tiers forming a pyramid, topped by Gaspard Marsy's statue (looking west over the gardens and the Grand Canal rather than towards the palace) and enhanced all around with the original figures of Balthazard Marsy and an assortment of gilded frogs and lizards sculpted by Claude Bertin. The four tiers are covered in 230 pieces of marble, composed of the white and grey-veined Cararra, greenish marble from

Campan Campan (; oc, Campan) is a Communes of France, commune in the Hautes-Pyrénées Departments of France, department in the Occitania (administrative region), Occitanie region of south-western France. Geography Campan stands in a valley of the sa ...

, and red marble from

Languedoc The Province of Languedoc (; , ; oc, Lengadòc ) is a former province of France. Most of its territory is now contained in the modern-day region of Occitanie in Southern France. Its capital city was Toulouse. It had an area of approximately ...

Restoration

The Latona Fountain underwent an "emergency" renovation between 2013 and 2015, after it was determined that the integrity of the basin supporting the fountain was threatened. The fountain itself was in a serious state of neglect, requiring total dismantlement for off-site restoration of individual parts. This included 230 pieces of marble which were cleaned and repaired, as well as the re-gilding of the frog and lizard lead fixtures. The elaborate system of lead pipes underpinning the fountain was also repaired by the fountain engineers of Versailles. The fountain was formally reopened in May 2015.

Legacy

The Latona Fountain has been cited as inspiration for Buckingham Fountain in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

Panorama

Parc de Versailles, parterre de Latone, vue générale

References

{{Coord, 48.8055032, 2.1176845, format=dms, type:landmark, display=title Palace of Versailles Frogs in art Sculptures of goddesses Leto