Located at one end of Plaza de San Francisco, opposite the main façade of the Bank of Spain, we find a fountain dedicated to the god Mercury. It has a circular basin raised on four steps, in the centre of which there is a pillar with neo-baroque decoration. On each of its sides there are "masks" that pour jets of water onto the sea of the fountain.
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- Fuente de Mercurio *
The bronze statue that crowns the fountain represents Mercury, the Roman god of commerce, heir to the Greek Hermes. Specifically, due to its iconography, it can be said that it is a "Hermes Argifonte", since he holds a sword in one hand and a caduceus in the other, recalling the order he received from Zeus to kill the multi-eyed giant Argos Panoptes, who was watching the nymph Io in the sanctuary of Hera.
The fountain that we find today is the result of a reconstruction carried out by the architect Rafael Manzano in 1974. For its design he followed the model of a previous fountain that was in the same place, the work of Juan Fernández Iglesias. The statue of Mercury that we can still see today belonged to this 18th century fountain.
There was even a previous fountain in the same place and with the same theme, built around 1576 and in whose design Asensio de Maeda participated as architect and Diego de Pesquera as the author of Mercury. The sculpture was cast in bronze by Bartolomé Morel, who was also the founder of the "Giraldillo", the monumental weather vane that crowns the Giralda. This primitive fountain was destroyed during a disturbance in 1712.
It seems that there has been a fountain in this area at least since medieval times. In all likelihood it was not a monumental fountain but was intended to supply water to the residents.
The choice of Mercury as the theme of the fountain is related to the commercial splendour in which Seville lived, mainly after the Discovery of America, when the city became the "gateway and port of America", as its port was the only one authorised for commercial exchanges between Spain and the American territories.
In fact, it is not the only fountain dedicated to Mercury in the city. There is another one in the Gardens of the Alcázar. It was made by Diego de Pesquera and cast by Bartolomé Morel around 1576.
