Giovan Battista Vermiglioli, Le sculture di Niccolò e Giovanni da Pisa e di Arnolfo Fiorentino che ornano la Fontana Maggiore di Perugia disegnate ed incise da Silvestro Massari (Sculptures by Niccolò and Giovanni from Pisa decorating the Fontana Maggiore in Perugia, as designed and engraved by Silvestro Massari).

Perugia : Tip. Baduel at V. Bartelli, 1834 Sala del Dottorato, S-5-13

In 1827 G.B. Vermiglioli (1769-1848), professor in Perugia of the first chair of archeology in 1810, founder of the nineteenth-century archaeological school of Perugia and director of the Civic Museums, celebrated with a solemn speech the return of water in the Fontana Maggiore (1278) after more than twenty five years .

A few years later he published this overall publication on the monument with beautiful chalcographies of Sylvester Massari, professor at the Academy of Perugia.

The two basins with Nicola and Giovanni Pisano sculptures are a real book carved on the culture of that time, celebrating Perugia, recalling its foundation, the Saints and even contemporary characters.

In the so-called “Month-cycle”, covering a large part of the lower basin, the main stages of the agricultural works are marked.

The tile with the fishing in February recalls the beginning of the Lent, the time of maximum consumption of fish.

Medieval ecclesiastical regulations imposed the "low-fat eating", that is abstinence from meat consumption (the "fat eating"), for more than 100 days a year.

It is perhaps of freshwater fish, then central in food consumption: a high-relief of the upper basin depicts the Trasimeno Lake as a woman holding fishes.

Thanks to the high consumption of lake fish, renowned throughout the whole center of Italy, citizens of Perugia earned the nickname of mangialasche (roach-fish eaters), from the name of the most common fish in the Trasimeno until the '30s.