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• 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 Fountains of Rome: The Trevi Fountain

This passage is very important to what I shall say later, and I would like you to concentrate on it, because it shows that the decision to link the aqueduct to the springs in the area of Salone (from which the Trevi Fountaind and acqueduct water had previously come) was actually taken and implemented only during the reign of Pope Pius IV. Therefore, until that time, the origin of the Aqua Vergine water was not Salone proper, but another place nearby.
Moreover, in the first century A.D., Frontinus wrote that he had been unable to make an exact measurement of the Aqua Vergine water at its source because this was “made up of several tributaries, streams and springs”. So it is clear that springs from several adjoining areas had been diverted to a single collection point at which the real Vergine aqueduct began. The truth of this is made even clearer when we see that in the middle of the 18th century, at the time when the present fountain was being built, “many bubbles were continually being found at the head of the spring, where Salvi succeeded in reviving and cleaning the principal conduit made of “signino” as long ago as the time of Agrippa and thereby opening up those most abundant sources”. [Signino is a kind of waterproof cement made of lime and broken terracotta]

Certainly, it is not easy to pinpoint the exact start of Agrippa’s original aqueduct for the Aqua Vergine, owing to the almost total lack of systematic archaeological excavations in this very rich area of water sources to the left-hand side of the old Via Collatina. All we need to know, however, is that the Salone springs, which eventually made a lasting contribution to increasing the strength of the ancient and by then anaemic aqueduct, were not tapped until around 1565 and it was only from that time that the water began to be called “Aqua Salonica”; previously it had gone by the name of “Aqua Vergine” or “Aqua di Trevi”. (Water of Trevi)

As everyone is aware, this last name really belongs to the most gigantic outdoor fountain in Rome and it has two common explanations, both different and both very brief. The first is that the fountain had three outlet pipes so that the water came out in three ways [= trivio], which in fact it did; the second is that the fountain was situated at the point where three roads met [tre vie or again, trivio]. Of the two explanations implying that the name “Aqua di Trevi” derives from the name of the fountain, the one most widely believed is the second, but in fact both are completely without foundation. The question is a little more complicated than that, yet is also much simpler. In medieval and 16th century Latin documents, the name Trevi always appeared in only one form: Trivium. In Italian, on the other hand, there were many variations. The earliest appearance (10th century) is as Treio; later Treyo, Treggio, Treglio (or Lo Treglio), Treo and Trevi. Next Page...