FACADE with CORINTHIAN COLUMS

History of this fountain began in 19 B.C. when it was inaugurated the Aqua Virgo acqueduct projected by Marco Agrippa, Augusto's lieutenant. Here there was the end of that aqueduct necessary for thermal baths close to the Pantheon. Three basins collected the water coming from three different pipes exactly as it happens nowadays. The architectural history of this place started again during the Renaissance when Pope Nicolò V wanted and approved a new project signed by Leon Battista Alberti and Bernardo Rossellino who thought to realize a facade with some Vatican coats of arms and a rectangular basin collecting the water. Also Gian Lorenzo Bernini put hands on the project creating a basament and orientating the fountain in the present position but then the works stopped. Finalliy Pope Clement XII Corsini wrote the end of this history proclaiming a competition won by architect Nicola Salvi who had been helped in the realization by his friend and famous painter Luigi Vanvitelli. Salvi's project was preferred for its great monumental aspect that probably makes this fountain one of the most famous in the world. The central part remember a temple or a triumphal arch with some bas-relief representing the virgen indicating the original spring as legend recounts between Corinthian colums. The upper part report an inscription commemorating the work realized in obedience to Clemente XII's wishes enclosed by four allegorical estatues. In the middle a great Nettuno leads a shell shaped coach towed by two tritons of opposite mood to symbolize two different aspect of the ocean. The name of the fountain seems to derive from the name of the area found in an old document (regio trivii).