Tree of Fertility

The Tree of Fecundity is a singular fresco found on one of the walls of the Fonti dell’Abbondanza in Piazza del Duomo in Massa Marittima‘s

The building itself is located on Via Ximenes to the left of the Duomo, exiting the square towards the city walls. It was the original site of the city’s water supply and was built in 1265 at the request of the Massetani.

Under the three Gothic arches is a room that once housed the city’s fountain. Residents came here to collect water or wash clothes instead of walking to the streams and wells outside the city.

During the recent restoration of this stone building, the builders discovered a rare and strange fresco: the Tree of Fertility (pictured above).

My photograph is not fantastic, but the fresco represents a tree, only instead of leaves, male genitalia grow on this tree. Under the tree, there is a group of women who seem to be eagerly picking up the fallen genitals.

It might seem like an odd work of art to have above a communal washtub, but pseudo-erotic paintings like this were common in medieval history. A tree on which genitals grow represented fertility and was connected to ancient Greece-Rome and the gods Dionysus and Eros.

If you consider that these fountains were mostly used by women, it’s actually not a bad place to have a fresco of this type. It’s like killing two birds with one stone: You do the laundry and at the same time sneak in a quick prayer for fertility. Now that’s what I call multitasking!