TREVI
FOUNTAIN IN ROME
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"THE
HISTORY AND THE MUSEUM"
FACADE
with CORINTHIAN COLUMS
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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 Nicoḷ 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).
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