At the foot of the Spanish Steps on Piazza di Spagna you will find the remarkable Fontana della Barcaccia, the “Fountain of the Old Boat”.

During his time a Pope, Urban VIII had many of Rome’s aqueducts rebuilt, bringing fresh water back to several parts of the city. In 1627 he commissioned Pietro and Gian Lorenzo Bernini to build a fountain on the piazza.

In the 15th an 16th centuries the River Tiber regularly flooded this area and according to popular legend, in 1598 one flood was so important that the piazza was under water for several weeks. When the water receded, a boat was found on the square, and this inspired Bernini in his choice of subject for his fountain.

The boat is half sunk in its basin, water spilling over the bows and water trickling out of the side of the prow and from a pedestal in the middle of the boat. On the stern is a sun in relief and on the prow is the bee motif of the house of Barberini – the family name of Pope Urban VIII.

There are benches around the fountain and it’s nice to sit there in the sun listening to the gurgle of the fountain. Because of the area’s low water pressure the water doesn’t come out in a jet and fortunately no-one has thought to change this by adding a pump. Keats, the English poet who died in a house on the piazza wrote about the fountain, which he could hear from his deathbed. He asked that the words “Here lies one whose name was writ in water” should be inscribed on his tomb.

Pope Urban VIII had several fountains built in Rome, after he had ordered the reconstruction of many of the aqueducts that had fallen into disrepair. One of his fountains is the Triton Fountain on Piazza Barberini, where his family had their palace.

This fountain was the last one to be commissioned by Pope Urban VIII before he died in 1644. It was created by Gian Lorenzo Bernini from specific instructions by the pope. Urban VIII was a great patron of the arts and a well-read man. He was inspired by a passage in Book I of “Metamorphose” by the famous Roman poet, Ovid. The passage he asked Bernini to put into sculpture describes Triton commanding the waters to retreat after the Deluge.

The fountain was sculpted in travertine – a type of limestone formed by hot springs – and depicts a magnificent Triton as a merman. He is kneeling on the tails of four dolphins. In his hand is a conch shell that he is raising to his lips like a trumpet.
The four dolphins that form the base in the centre of the basin are entwined around the Papal Tiara and crossed keys, below which you can see the Barberini heraldic symbol of bees.

The fountain is unique in that it was the first free-standing thematic fountain to be sculpted outside private gardens. At that time, public fountains were rather plain, unassuming affairs, but Pope Urban VIII wanted something a bit more spectacular outside his family home.

No visit to Rome is complete without seeing the Trevi Fountain, so don’t forget to take some loose change with you to toss into the basin of the most famous fountain in the world. You must remember to have your back to the fountain and toss the coins over your shoulder for luck.

To understand the importance of Rome’s fountains, you must understand the importance of the aqueducts that brought fresh water to the city. The River Tiber was filthy and unfit for drinking as it was used as a sewer. It was a Roman custom to build an imposing fountain at the end of an aqueduct. A lot of the aqueducts were destroyed in 536 by the Goths; the Aqua Virgo was repaired in 1453 and a fountain was erected shortly afterwards.

In 1629 Pope Urban VIII commissioned Gian Lorenzo Bernini to build a bigger, better fountain, but before work got underway the pope died and Bernini’s plans were shelved. In 1730 Nicola Salvi won the competition set by Pope Clement XII to build the new fountain and it was completed in 1762 by Giuseppe Pannini, who took over the construction when Salvi died.

The Palazzo Poli serves as a backdrop to this truly wonderful fountain, the Triumphal arch is superimposed onto its façade and rocks and sculptured vegetation run along its foundations and around the borders of the basin.

The main sculpture is a magnificent statue of Oceanus riding in an oyster-shell chariot, pulled by sea horses and guided by two tritons. On one side of Oceanus is a statue of Abundance holding an urn, on his other side it Salubrity holding a cup for a snake to drink from. Over the statues is a bas relief depicting the legend of how a young virgin led Roman technicians to the source of the spring at feeds the Aqua Virgo Aqueduct.

A small fortune is thrown into the fountain everyday; it is not unusual to find over 2000 Euros in the basin. The area is policed to stop thieves pinching the money, which is used to fund a supermarket for the poor.

Most of Rome’s important fountains were dedicated to the mythological water gods and nymphs in thanks to the fresh water that arrived in the city via the aqueducts. The Fountain of Neptune on the north end of Piazza Navona is a fine example of this custom.

The ancient Aqua Virgo Aqueduct was repaired in 1453 and by 1570 a large number of pipes from it carried water to various parts of the city. The number of public fountains in any area was in consequence to the size of the area’s population and Piazza Navona was a highly populated area, as its three fountains testify.

The Fountain of Neptune was commissioned by Pope Gregory XIII in 1574 and constructed by Giacomo della Porta. The lower basin is made of white marble, the upper basin out of Pietrasanta marble. When it was built, the fountain had no statue as at that time only fountains in private gardens were richly adorned, while the public ones were strictly utilitarian.

In the 19th century public fountains lost their importance as fresh water suppliers as interior plumbing became possible. However they remained as a sort of “status symbol” and in 1878 Antonio della Bitta and Gregorio Zappala won a competition to add statues to the fountain. Della Bitta sculpted the centrepiece of Neptune fighting with an octopus and Zappala sculpted the Nereids, cupids and walruses.

The Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi or "Fountain of the Four Rivers" is a fountain in Rome, Italy, located in the Piazza Navona. It is a masterpiece of Gianlorenzo Bernini's, and emblematic of the dynamic and dramatic effects sought by high Baroque artists. It was erected in 1651 in front of the church of Sant'Agnese in Agone. The four gods on the corners of the fountain represent the four major rivers of the world known at the time: the Nile, Danube, Ganges, and Plate. The design of each god figure has symbolic importance.The Ganges carries a long oar, representing the river's navigability. The Nile's head is draped with a loose piece of cloth, meaning that no one at that time knew exactly where the Nile's source was. The Danube touches the Papal coat of arms, since it is the large river closest to Rome. And the Río de la Plata is sitting on a pile of coins, a symbol of the riches America could offer to Europe.

Piazza Navona boasts three fine statues, one of which, on the southern end of the square is the impressive Fontana del Moro.

The original fountain was constructed by Giamcomo della Porta in 1575, in Pietrasanta marble, called “holy stone” because it was also used in parts of St Peter’s Basilica. Although Della Porta allowed his students to place four tritons blowing on shells and four masks around the border of the basin, there was no centrepiece, as public fountains at that time weren’t meant to be beautified.

There is a rather amusing history surrounding the fountain: In 1652, Olympia Maidalchini lived in a house overlooking the fountain and she wasn’t happy with it, thinking it wasn’t impressive enough to stand outside her house. So she asked her brother-in-law, Pope Innocent X, to do something about it. The pope gave a small amount of money to Bernini and commissioned him to create something worthy of his rather bossy sister-in-law.

Apparently, the small amount of money offended the great artist and he gave the job to one of his students, who produced three dolphins holding up a shell. If Bernini was offended by the pitiful payment, “Donna” Olympia was likewise unimpressed by the student’s efforts. She had another moan at the Pope, who dug deeper into his coffers and Bernini produced the beautiful statue of the Moor holding a dolphin.

He might have overdone it a bit, because the statue was so big that the basin had to be enlarged. The originals of the Moor and the tritons were removed in 1874 and set up in the Villa Borghese. Copies were made and placed in the fountain on Piazza Navona.