Composed of a large bronze pine cone almost four meters high which once spouted water from the top, the Pigna originally stood near the Pantheon next to the Temple of Isis.

[1] The courtyard where it stands was originally part of the Cortile del Belvedere, designed by Donato Bramante to connect the palace of Pope Innocent VIII with the Sistine Chapel.

When Bramante died, architect Pirro Ligorio finished the project and added the wall and niche to close the courtyard.

The pine cone sculpture crowning this fountain was only installed in 1807, replacing a 16th-century statue of St. Paul damaged by the Napoleonic army.

In his Divine Comedy, Dante describes the size of the head of the giant Nimrod by referencing this fountain: His face appeared to me as long and large As is at Rome the pine-cone of Saint Peter's.