The war between Rome and Parma delays the Trevi Fountain
The other reason is that in this design of the fountain the anonymous architect was not ashamed to include a whole series of features typical of Bernini: high up to the left of the fountain, near the corner of the group with the statue of the goddess Rome above the cartouche, you can see one of the customary fantastic and bearded faces (viz. the “Moor Fountain”), which Gian Lorenzo liked so much; above the two central niches in the fountain, there are two carved versions of a scroll enveloped in a lion skin, a motif that corresponds exactly to the famous “dragon skin” on the base of the Apollo Fountain and Daphne Fountain in Galleria Borghese; finally, another element extremely characteristic of Bernini is the little fountain at the right-hand corner of the low lip at the front (there may also be one on the left), consisting of a shell surmounted by a “large bee” acting as a water spout, a motif the artist had already used at Palazzo Barberini. Nor must we forget the fact that those ridged columns and pilasters that make the work so “heavy” are there, not so much in imitation of other Roman buildings but – if I can put it this way – as a kind of geometric version of Bernini’s imaginative arrangements of the old, “rustic” rock formations.
In conclusion, although this fountain design certainly did not come from Gian Lorenzo’s own imagination, it is an amalgamation of the features most typical of him in his fountains; in fact, I would say there is almost too much of Bernini in it for it to be his. So we must look not to a celebrated artist – who would not have been so presumptuous – but to an immediate associate of Bernini himself, one who was such a great admirer that he would (in my humble opinion) have presented his design for the fountain to the great man himself rather than to the authorities. Since the sketch was made between 1631 and 1640, as pure guesswork we might look to Luigi, Gian Lorenzo’s own brother, as they regularly worked together.
The reasons why Bernini’s fountain was not built probably lie purely in the high cost of the war that had broken out between Rome (or rather the Barberini) and the Duke of Parma in mid-1641. In this connection, I shall quote from Gigli, who held a commission from Urban VIII as an administrator or, in other words, a counselor. The excerpt – which I quote impartially – might have been written today: “Buratto, the Chief Administrator, spoke for everyone and said that the Roman People had commanded us to offer to pay His Holiness for a third of the infantry during the war. The Pope was touched and tears came to his eyes and he thanked the People warmly and several times signalled the magistrates to stand; and then he talked for a long time, making it clear that he did not undertake this war willingly (as those present could see because he had maintained the peace continuously for 10 years) but his hand was forced by the Duke of Parma.” And I believe I can just tell how enthusiastic the people of Rome were about that war, and how much they loved it, from something else that most religious man Gigli wrote in July 1644: “the people were very happy when Urban died…”. Back to Bernini's First Trevi Design Home Page...
