I picked up this bronze dolphin in Genoa, Italy on my January 1999 travels. Genoa is the birthplace of Christopher Columbus, and still a port city today. A nautical belief told that to see a school of dolphins at play around a ship indicated that although the crew may be experiencing clement weather at the time they should prepare for a change in the weather as a storm was imminent. The reverse was also true. As barometers of the sea, dolphins have been held in high regard by sailors and generally considered as lucky.
