These remains were taken away shortly before the
making of the fountain, that began in 1575. The two lions were
soon reused: we shall meet them again in page 6.
Della Porta's project followed his traditional scheme: a four-lobed basin,
resting on a short flight of three steps; the water gushed from a vase in
its center, and from four grotesque faces, the same ones that had originally been
carved for piazza Navona's northern fountain, but never used. |
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late 16th century: the fountain had been built (asterisk)
but the obelisk still stood by San Macuto (arrow) |
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Some 150 years later, pope Clement XI, likely inspired
by the great success of the Fountain of the Rivers (see page 3),
decided to alter the
shape of this one too, and had the central vase replaced by a larger group of
rocks, with an obelisk on top, somewhat recalling Bernini's masterwork.
The spire chosen for this purpose was a small one, that during the
Middle Ages had been unearthed and stood in front of a nearby church, San Macuto.
During the same works, the pope also changed the fountain's original base with
a wider platform and a larger number of steps (five on the southern side,
four on the northern side, due to the ground's slope). |
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crest of Clement XI
(Albani family) |
The grotesque faces we see today, though, are not the original ones: during the
restoration works in 1886, instead of receiving a conservation treatment, they were hastily replaced by
modern copies, as the ones in piazza Navona (see page 2), a procedure that
today would be considered absurd. |
several figures decorate the rocks below the obelisk |
THE FOUNTAIN OF PIAZZA SAN MARCO
What is today one of Rome's largest squares, piazza Venezia, would have been
barely recognizable up to the late 19th century. It was then called
piazza San Marco, and its size was maybe less than 1/3 of its present dimensions.
detail of the same spot, from a map dated 1551 and a modern one:
1 - piazza San Marco (now piazza Venezia); 2 - Palazzo Venezia;
3 - Palazzetto Venezia; 4 - via Lata (now via del Corso)
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Palazzo Venezia, the mansion of the Venetian pope Paul II (1464-71),
is the only building that today still stands on its original spot.
The southern and eastern sides of the square were respectively closed by Palazzetto Venezia
and by a district made of small old houses and narrow lanes; the latter was
completely demolished, while Palazzetto Venezia was taken down and
faithfully rebuilt on one side of the larger mansion. |
All these alterations were carried
out from 1885 to 1911, for the making of the enormous memorial dedicated to
king Victor Emmanuel II (seen at the bottom of the modern map).
But San Marco's fountain had already been taken away some fifty years earlier.
detail of a 1572 map showing piazza San Marco;
the ancient tub (arrow) stood by Palazzetto Venezia |
In the 1460s, the aforesaid pope Paul II
had an old granite tub, likely coming from ancient roman
baths, placed in piazza San Marco, in front of his palace. The pope
was an art lover; his collection was the original nucleus from which
the Capitolium Museum would have been founded, centuries later. The large tub
had traditional decorations carved on both sides: a pair of handles,
and a lion's head in the center.
Sometime during the mid 1500s, it was given to the Farnese family
in exchange for a slightly smaller
and simpler one: this one had no handles, and its shape was not oval, but had
six sides. |
When a few decades later Giacomo della Porta started working
on San Marco's fountain, he obviously thought of using it, and included it
in his project.
But due to the long distance from the duct's origin,
and to the increasing number of private houses that under the payment of a tax
connected to this branch, the water reached piazza San Marco with a very low
pressure, not enough for the fountain. So della Porta's project was set aside.
Ten years later, the new pope, Sixtus V, had already completed "his" new
aqueduct, the Aqua Felix (see also Aqueducts, page 4),
and the works for a new set of fountains were already in progress. Della Porta's
old project was finally approved. |
18th century: the fountain's front (circle) on the front
of Palazzetto San Marco, in an engraving by G. Vasi |
In order to exploit the low pressure of the Aqua Virgo's
branch at its best, the architect placed the ancient tub inside a large
basin, interred so to let the level of the output be as low as possible.
This solution did work, and for the second time della Porta asked the
permission to use the statue of Marforio as a decoration.
the ancient tub, once the fountain
of piazza San Marco, in its present location |
At first Sixtus V said yes,
and Marforio was actually moved to piazza San Marco, but only a few days later
the statue was taken to the top of the Capitolium hill, for reasons that
will be explained in page 8. Della Porta replaced
it with a simple front, bearing an inscribed plaque.
The fountain was not very successful, and after some time
it even turned dry. Both the basin and the tub became a sort of dump,
where the people threw their litter, up to the point that within a couple of
centuries they had been almost buried under heaps of trash.
In the mid 1800s pope Pius IX decided to move them from the square to
the Pincio hill, on a humble location where they are still now. |
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