The Fountain of the Four Rivers (Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi), also known as the Fountain of the Rivers, is located in the center of Piazza Navona, in the Parione district.
It is one of the world's greatest works of Baroque art, as well as one of the masterpieces that best illustrates the artistic genius of its creator, Gian Lorenzo Bernini.
The origins of this fountain are closely linked to the election of Pope Innocent X Pamphili (1644-1655) to the papal throne, especially for two key factors: his plan to transform Piazza Navona into a monumental square and his rivalry with his predecessor, Pope Urban VIII Barberini (1623-1644), the latter a patron of the artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini.
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| Piazza Navona as it appeared on Antonio Tempesta's map of 1591 |
When Innocent X became Pope, he sought to minimize the power of his rivals, the Barberini family. This was also accomplished artistically, by sidelining the artists most closely associated with Urban VIII, first and foremost Bernini, a move that favored the work of his rival Francesco Borromini.
Innocent X also wanted to make Piazza Navona a celebration of the Pamphili family, just as the Farnese and Barberini families had done in previous centuries for the squares overlooking their respective palaces and bearing their families' names.
At the time of Innocent X's election to the See of Peter, a simple drinking trough stood in the center of Piazza Navona, while his own palace represented only a small portion of the block currently occupied almost entirely, flanked by the homes of the Cybo and Mellini families. The Church of Sant'Agnese in Agone, on the other hand, was merely a small place of worship.
In Innocent X's plans to transform the square into a celebration of the Pamphili family included the purchase of the Cybo and Mellini residences to build a large family palace, while Sant'Agnese in Agone was to become a majestic church that would also serve as the palace chapel. A monumental fountain was planned at the center to replace the former drinking trough.
Given the decision to downsize the artists who had worked with the Barberini family, Innocent X turned to Girolamo Rainaldi for the palace and church. Borromini then intervened to modify these works, and Francesco Borromini for the fountain. Bernini, after years of being the undisputed protagonist of artistic production in Rome, found himself marginalized; he was only given the task of extending the conduits of the Acqua Vergine from where the Trevi Fountain now stands to Piazza Navona.
Borromini then presented an initial design, elegant yet simple, featuring an obelisk set on a base with four shells with masks, which spouted water into the basin below. This simplicity did not enthuse the Pope, allowing Bernini to deploy a clever ploy to curry favor with Innocent X and secure the commission for the work in 1648, at the expense of his rival artist.
Bernini then sketched out the fountain and created a one-and-a-half-meter-tall silver model, which he sent to Donna Olimpia Maidalchini, the Pope's highly influential sister-in-law, who was particularly fond of ostentation. Impressed by the design, presented in a particularly theatrical manner, she convinced the Pope to commission Bernini to build the fountain, a feat he also did because the Pope himself was greatly impressed by the model. The project marked a significant departure from the models of monumental fountains, as it brought elements of the rustic fountain typical of suburban villas into a particularly celebratory and central urban context. This fountain, characterized primarily by the presence of natural elements such as rocks, had until then been almost unthinkable for such a context. While this element is clearly present, visible, and distinctive in Bernini's work, some elements of the initial design differ somewhat from the final work.
From the wooden sketch, it appears that Bernini originally intended to create the fountain's figures in bronze, but when he later opted to use travertine, he had to revise the design's proportions for reasons of statics.
The fountain is elliptical in shape at street level, within which is a large marble rock formation, an element that, as we have noted, was unprecedented for a fountain of that size. Above this formation stands the Agonal Obelisk, a Roman copy of an Egyptian obelisk commissioned by Emperor Domitian for his villa in Albano. The obelisk was moved in 311 AD by Maxentius to his circus on the Appian Way and, in 1651, when it was reassembled, was broken into four pieces to place it on the fountain.
The rock formation on which the obelisk rests is hollow: this, too, is unusual for the architectural standards of the time, which viewed the central structure as a single unit. This touch, which adds further drama and movement to the composition, had already been experimented with a few years earlier, in 1643, by Bernini himself in the Triton Fountain in Piazza Barberini. At the four corners of the rock group, Bernini placed four nude male figures, allegories of the rivers of the four continents then known, which give the fountain its name. The figures are so large that, if standing upright, they would be over four meters tall.
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| Personification of the Ganges River |
The four statues were designed by Bernini but created by other sculptors, and represent the Nile (by Giacomo Antonio Fancelli), the Ganges (by Claude Poussin), the Danube (by Antonio Raggi) and the Rio de La Plata (by Francesco Baratta), while the travertine rock is the work of Giovan Maria Franchi.
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| Personification of River Nile |
These statues represent a strong break with previous sculpture: their poses are very distant from classical solemnity, they have exuberant and lively positions, such as that of the Danube, which indicates one of the two symbols of the Pamphili family placed on the north and south sides of the rock group of the fountain, or the Nile, who covers his face with a cloth, an allegory of the fact that its sources were unknown.
Then there's the theatrical gesture of the Rio de La Plata, with its raised arm, the subject of an urban legend that we're keen to debunk. Rumor has it that Bernini created it as a gesture of defiance toward his rival Borromini, since it points toward the Church of Sant'Agnese in Agone, designed by the Ticino architect, as if to warn against its collapse. This story highlights Bernini's exuberant character and his rivalry with Borromini, but it is effectively a lie: Borromini's renovation of the church, in fact, occurred after Bernini's creation of the fountain. The statue of the Ganges, however, holds a large oar, symbolizing the navigability of the Indian river.
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| Personification of the Danube River |
Further enhancing the impression of movement in the sculptural group are the numerous animals and plants in the basin and the rock group, all closely linked to representations of rivers. For example, a horse emerges from an opening in the rocks as if about to launch into a race, like the horses of the Danube plains.
There is also a crocodile, which also resembles an armadillo: we must obviously understand that in the 17th century, animals whose habitat was far from Italy were often depicted with incorrect features, as it was not easy to find verified and completely accurate images and descriptions. A lion emerging from the statue, located near a palm tree, is also visible, created by the sculptor Giobatta Palumbo. A sea serpent and a large fish, perhaps a dolphin, are also visible, their mouths open, swallowing the water from the basin using a singular and original expedient. A land serpent is also depicted on the rock group. Crowning the group, on the top of the obelisk, is a bronze representation of a dove with an olive branch in its mouth, the symbol of the Pamphili family, created by Nicola Sale.
The dramatic effect is created by images that, as we have repeatedly emphasized, are unprecedented for a monumental fountain in an urban context. This is not only due to the presence of natural elements, previously considered primarily rustic, but also due to the strongly pictorial tone created by the numerous natural and animal elements, breaking with the classicist solemnity previously employed in sculpture. This element fits within the Baroque vision of a unity of the arts, which Bernini perfectly interprets in his sculptures.
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| Innocent X visits the Fountain of the Rivers (Museum of Rome) |
The work was extremely expensive for the time, and Pope Innocent X had to raise funds through a tax on bread and a reduction in the standard size of loaves. This displeased the citizens, who blamed Olimpia Maidalchini, the Pope's sister-in-law, for the decision, believing her to be indirectly responsible and long-held as a greedy person for money and power.
The fountain was completed in 1651 and inaugurated on June 12th of that year.
The fountain's scenography was appreciated by all contemporaries, except, of course, Borromini, who was disappointed at losing the commission. This fact also contributed to fueling the rivalry between the two artists and the legends associated with it, such as the aforementioned urban legend linked to this very fountain.
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