• Back to Trevi Fountain Home Page
• Origins of the Trevi Fountain
  • Trevi Fountain Origins 1
  • Trevi Fountain Origins 2
  • Trevi Fountain Origins 3
  • Trevi Fountain Origins 4
  • Trevi Fountain Origins 5
• Trevi Fountain & Jacopo della Porta
  • Trevi and Della Porta 1
  • Trevi and Della Porta 2
  • Trevi and Della Porta 3
• Trevi Fountain and Paul V
  • Trevi Fountain and Paul V page 1
  • Trevi Fountain and Paul V page 2
• Trevi Fountain and Bernini
  • Bernini's First Trevi Design 1
  • Bernini's First Trevi Design 2
  • Bernini's First Trevi Design 3
• Trevi and Alexander
• Trevi Competition in 1732
  • Trevi Completion in 1732 page 1
  • Trevi Completion in 1732 page 2
  • Trevi Completion in 1732 page 3
• Bernini Second Design
  • Bernini Second Design 1
  • Bernini Second Design 2
  • Bernini Second Design 3
  • Bernini Second Design 4
  • Bernini Second Design 5
  • Bernini Second Design 6
  • Bernini Second Design 7
• Trevi Architects: Bernini/ Salvi
  • Trevi Architects 1
  • Trevi Architects 2
  • Trevi Architects 3
  • Trevi Architects 4
  • Trevi Architects 5
• A Final Thought

The "Coin Throwing" Legend of the Trevi Fountain

A well told legend holds that if visitors to the Trevi Fountain throws a coin into the fountain, they are ensured a return to The City of Rome.

Other interpretations are that two coins thrown will ensure a marriage will occur soon, and three coins leads to a divorce or breakup. Another version of this legend is that it is lucky to throw three coins with one's right hand over one's left shoulder into the Waters of the Trevi Fountain.

Approximately $3500 is thrown into the Trevi Fountain each day and the coins are collected at night, and used to subsidize a supermarket for Rome's poor population.

The Trevi Fountain: A Copy of the Villa Aldobrandini in Frascati

Now let’s look at the fountain: there is some originality in the line of the pool which, with its “foundation” of rocks, vegetation and the four swans, has a certain liveliness; otherwise, rising from this foundation, we have Mount Parnassus, the Muses fluttering about its slopes, and the beautiful Pegasus pawing the ground to strike water. As for the water, it can hardly be surprising that the single jet so low down beneath the horse’s hoof gives such a thin stream (but you will understand why that is a little later).

But the anonymous artist did not invent the idea of Parnassus and all that accompanies it; he copied it lock, stock and barrel from the fountain Jacopo della Porta built around 1600 in the grounds of the Villa Aldobrandini in Frascati: the famous, and now vanished, fountain in the “Hall of the Winds”. In fact, that is also where the artist of this sketch found the niche completely covered in vegetation and, outside, the arch decorated with festoons, and even the two smaller niches with the two standing female statues.
But what a difference there is between the two compositions! In the one by Master Jacopo, the figures are all lined up and sitting quietly in perfect order on the gentle slopes of the mountain like a very well-behaved class of schoolchildren.

Now look at the anonymous sketch and see what great vivacity the artist has managed to instil into his version. The whole idea of arranging the Muses in a pyramid unfailingly leads the eye to the most important figure, Apollo, yet, at the same time, each Muse perched on one of the crags of Parnassus “moves” in such a lively fashion that she deliberately attracts the attention of the observer. It is certain that this design reveals the presence of a great artist so that, having defined the architecture as “in the style of” Bernini, it becomes spontaneous, even logical, to say that the inventiveness displayed in the rustic fountain is not just “in the style of” Bernini, but “by Bernini”.

Since I have now brought in Bernini’s name, I must also observe that, setting aside any other consideration, he cannot have drawn this sketch personally (or had it drawn for him, for Gian Lorenzo always had his architectural plans drafted by someone else) because of the presence of that horseman beside the pool. His clothes, and especially his hairstyle – the pigtail hanging down his back – and the tricorne hat mean he cannot be any earlier than the first two or three decades of the 18th century, because that fashion first appeared around 1720-30. So, if we insist on turning to Bernini, we must say that this is not an original sketch by Gian Lorenzo but a copy made from one of his originals around the date just established. Next Page...