Fontana dell'Elefante (Elefantenbrunnen)

The Elephant Fountain was created by Giovanni Battista Vaccarini, an architect from Palermo, as part of the rebuilding of the city of Catania after the January 11, 1693 earthquake. Most scholars believe that Vaccarini was inspired by Gian Lorenzo Bernini's Elephant and Obelisk, a similar structure in Rome's Piazza della Minerva. However, other possibilities exist; an elephant surmounted by an obelisk with a ball on top is documented in the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, page 38, (Venice, 1499) attributed to Francesco Colonna.
The plinth consists of a white marble pedestal located in the center of a basin, also made of marble, into which jets of water fall and spout from the plinth. On the plinth two sculptures reproduce the two rivers of Catania, the Simeto and the Amenano. Above is the statue of the elephant, its proboscis facing the cathedral of St. Agatha, patron saint of Catania.
On the animal's back is an Egyptian-style obelisk, 3.66 meters high, made of granite, hypothetically from Syene; it has no hieroglyphics, but is decorated with Egyptian-style figures that do not constitute meaningful hieroglyphic writing. Of uncertain chronology, it may have been one of the two destinations of Catania's ancient Roman circus; the other, more fragmentary one is in the courtyard of the Ursino Castle. Mounted on the top part of the obelisk are a globe, surrounded by a crown of a palm leaf (representing martyrdom) and a branch of lilies (representing purity), plus above it a metal tablet on which there is an inscription dedicated to St. Agatha with the acronym "MSSHDEPL" ("Sound and sincere mind, for the honor of God and the liberation of her homeland"), and finally a cross.

Until 1737 Vaccarini worked to build the fountain, which was later completed with the Egyptian obelisk and the Agatine inscription. In 1757 it was renovated for the first time to add a basin. In 1826 the fountain was circumscribed by an iron fence, within which a small garden was made. Shortly after the unification of Italy, a decision was made to move the fountain from Piazza del Duomo to Piazza Palestro: on May 30, 1862, however, Bonaventura Gravina organized a popular uprising that blocked the move.
There were two restorations carried out during the 20th century: in 1905 a second pool was built, and in 1998 the gate and garden were removed so that today it is possible to sit on some steps at the foot of the base.

The myth
U Liotru (also called, more rarely, Diotru) owes its appellation to the mispronunciation of the name Heliodorus. The latter, according to popular legends, was a nobleman from Catania who allegedly tried unsuccessfully to become bishop of the diocese. Having fallen from grace, he is said to have become an apostate and to have been considered a "disciple of the Jews, a necromancer and a smith of idols." He would oppose Bishop Leo II the Thaumaturge, who would then condemn him to be burned alive in the Forum Achelles. This phantom character was linked to the elephant because a legend said that he was its sculptor and even used to ride it to travel from Catania to Constantinople. Also according to the legend, Bishop Leo allegedly had the statue taken outside the walls so that it would be forgotten, but the people would still give it divine honors. However, all the adventures of such Heliodorus and related connection with the stone elephant are to be considered mere invention.
Contrary to the fanciful versions of not only popular vulgate, the statue of the elephant symbolizing the City of Catania is the gnomon of the sundial placed in the center of Piazza Duomo. The monument is a measurer of time by sunlight and is therefore "heliotric", which in the Catania dialect has become liotru. After the 1693 earthquake, the reconstruction of Catania coincided with the period of greatest diffusion of sundials in Sicily and other parts of southern Italy. Carlo Maria Carafa, prince of Butera, is considered the most illustrious "gnomonist", that is, an expert in the construction of illustrious sundials, of that period. It is not possible that he participated in the construction of the Catanese sundial in Piazza Duomo. According to the late 18th-century traveler Jean Houel, "the…