Two-headed fountain

A formally isolated piece, enigmatic in terms of its origin, which associates two crowned heads and two shields with the emblems of Dom Manuel I and Dona Leonor.
Belonging to the context of public art in the Manueline period, this piece is composed of a twisted column, decorated with the scales of a reptile, ending in two anthropomorphic spouts, one with the crowned face of a woman and the other with the similarly crowned face of a bearded man. Sculpted in relief on the sides of the column are two shields. The first has the high-relief armillary sphere, with an ecliptic around which there runs the inscription E.M.P.R.P – Emanuel Primus Rex Portugaliae, corresponding to the name of Dom Manuel I (1495-1521) – in Roman capitals. In the second shield, carved in the same fashion, is a shrimping net, the device of the queen Dona Leonor, the wife of Dom João II (1481-1495) and the sister of Dom Manuel I. The presence of the shrimping-net situates the piece under the scope of the patronage of Dona Leonor.
The simultaneous representation of the devices of Dom Manuel and Dona Leonor on the same monument is rare, although it does happen, for example, on the Pillory at Óbidos.