Recently I've been making a few trips to our provincial capital of Torino or Turin, the dialect name which most visitors know it by. This stylie bull is the symbol of Torino and found adorning all manner of things. I found this interesting explanation of the origins of Torino's name on one of the city's site.
Turin: According to the legend, it was the Egyptian prince Phaethon to found the city of Taurina (around 1523 b.C., even earlier than Troy) where the Po meets the Dora, in honour of Api, an egyptian god having the features of a bull. Taurines, instead, a population having celtic-ligurian ancestors, established themselves here during the III century b.C. in a village called Taurasia, deriving from the indigenous word tauro, meaning mountain, transformed later into the symbol of a bull by analogy. Between 29 and 28 b.C. the Romans founded here the colony of Julia Augusta Taurinorum, subsequently shortened to Taurinorum, in order to indicate where the Taurines lived. This name was ultimately simplified to Taurinos, and, finally, to Turin.
According to Fabrizio the thing to do is step on the brass b_ _ _ _ of this mighty beast for a bit of luck, at least that's what legend has it. It doesn't really surprise me as there is a wild boar sculpture in one of the piazze in Florence who has a similar legend and is quite shiny form all the rubbing. The same goes for the right breast of the Julliette statue in Verona as well. So now when you're doing the passeggiata around Torino on the Kings walk under the covered porticos and you come upon a brass bull, you'll know what to do.
