Font d'Hèrcules (fountain)
At Font d’Hèrcules, or *La fuente de Hércules*, you’re looking at a Neoclassical fountain whose story begins with water, not sculpture. In Barcelona’s 18th- and 19th-century water-supply works—built to ease earlier periods of severe shortage—this monument was created as part of a civic, public-minded city improvement. The project spans 1797 to 1802, with the first stone laid on 28 August 1797. It was sculpted by Josep Moret on a design by Salvador Gurri i Corominas, and it is considered Barcelona’s oldest original public statue. The fountain originally stood on the Paseo de la Explanada, opposite the Fortress of the Ciudadela, on a route promoted by Catalonia’s captain general, Agustín de Lancaster—today corresponding to the Paseo de Picasso. Font d’Hèrcules also belonged to a group of four mythological fountains along the same promenade, pairing Hercules with Forcis, a nereid, and Aretusa. …
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