Historic Garzoni Gardens
Peasant with turkey and group of monkeys playing ball
In the small exedra created by the two flights of steps, above the balconies are twelve monkeys in different poses “portraying a game of ball”. The game they were intent on was played by teams of three players (terzino, spalla and battitore) according to the rules of tamburello, on courts with walls for rebound, using very hard wooden cylinders worn over the arm and fairly heavy leather-covered balls. The two monkeys located higher up appear to be spectators watching the match, while on the left another is intent on blowing up a ball with a pump engraved with the letters BD, another monkey to the right of the latter instead appears to be keeping the score of the match on a tablet where we can read CONTTA/40. E 30./MARCIÒ / E LE IL / 3° VA / AL 4° sul verso è ancora scritto PARTTE / 60. On an axis with the garden, in the middle of the exedra is a rocaille-work niche inside which is a statue of a peasant holding a turkey from which water spouts forth; on the left in a lower niche is a bitch, with a dog on the right. This peasant too, like the one below emptying the barrel, may well belong to the seventeenth-century decor of the garden.