Travel & Leisure Facts and Notes

The Trevi Fountain (Fontana di Trevi)! A visitor cannot come to Rome without witnessing this magnificent master piece created in the middle of Rome.

It’s the largest standing and most ambitious of the Baroque fountains of Rome. Measuring 25.9 meters (85 feet) high and 19.8 meters (65 feet) wide. Rome is rich in abundance of fountains. Currently consisted of over 3,000 fountains scattered all over the city. There is no place on earth like this.

The fountain is at the juncture of three roads (tre vie). It marks the terminal point of the “modern” Acqua Vergine. One of the ancient aqueducts that supplied water to ancient Rome, stretched 22 km (14 miles) away from the city. This aqueduct (Aqua Virgo)also fed water into the Baths of Agrippa. It served Rome for more than four hundred years.

Many changes were made as the centuries passed. In 1629 Pope Urban VIII asked Bernini to give the fountain a new definite, monumental form since he thought the earlier fountain was losing its beauty.

When the Urban VIII died the project was forgotten! But in 1732 Nicola Salvi adopted it again and took it over. The fountain was completed in 1762, the orignal Bernini’s project was rejected but there are many Bernini touches in the fountain anyway.

The legend says that visitors throwing a coin into the fountain will return to Rome once more in their life. Coins were thrown by three different individuals even though the current version says that two coins will bring a new romance and three will bring you will marry or divorce shortly after!

Quite a mystery to base your love in a toss of three coins into a fountain. Legend says that this act brings good luck to throw three coins with the right hand over one’s left shoulder into the Trevi Fountain.

Approximately more than 4,000 dollars are thrown into the fountain every day and collected during the night. Out of all this money lots have been used to help needy people in Rome. On a regular basis there are attempts to steal coins from the fountain, often using some a magnetized pole. In 1998 the fountain was refurbished and the stonework was scrubbed providing Trevi Fountain with re-circulating pumps.

Many people wonder what is the building behind Trevi Fountain. It’s called Palazzo dei Duchi di Polis. In the center is a modeled replica of the triumphal arch. The center niche has free-standing columns for maximal light-and-shade.

On the outside Oceanus, water comes out from her urn and Salubrity holds a cup from which a snake drinks out from. On the top is a copy of the Roman origin of the aqueducts. The tritons and horses provide symmetrical balance, with the maximum contrast with their facial expressions and poses.

The “Taming of the waters” is the major theme of this enormous scheme that mixes water and rockwork and fills up the small square.

Trevi area is definetely one of the most beautiful areas of Rome.