Water for the Trevi Fountain is brought from Salone
From the above documentation, one can conclude with absolute certainty that the name “Trevi fountain” derives from the Aqua Vergine, whose principal springs originated in an area rich in sources of water, situated approximately 12km from Rome, and that – on the basis of the documents consulted – the name of that place can be traced back to one of the various forms of the very commonly used Ancient Italic term Trebium which, through a series of variations in Roman dialect, eventually became Trevi. When that place name gradually disappeared (towards the end of the 14th century) the reason why the fountain in Rome was called “Trevi” was no longer understood. Then, just as “in agone” became “nagone” and then “Navona”, once the original meaning of “Trevi” had been forgotten, the name was explained either as trivio because, in fact, three roads met at the fountain, or – the popular derivation – as a reference to the fact that the water for the fountain came out of tre [three] spouts. Now that we’ve cleared both our way and the Trevi pipelines from centuries of encrusted non-expert etymologies, let’s quickly return to the subject of the Trevi Fountain, because we still have a very long way to go; being the writer, I know it’s long and (especially for you the reader) also pretty hard.
Once it was known that the water from the area of Salone could be brought to Rome, work on the new conduits was entrusted to an expert con man who had come up to the big city from Lecce: a certain Antonio Trevisi. This gentleman, seeing that the other fountain architects were asking 30,000 scudi, tried to undercut them all by asking only 24,000 to design the fountain and, having obtained the contract (in 1561), made haste to subcontract all the work for a total of 18,000, thus making a nice profit of six thousand scudi by means of his wheelings and dealings in regards to the fountain. Naturally, all these carryings-on dragged out the work and the hopes of the thirsty Romans wore thin. Finally, when nice Mr. Trevisi was good and dead, the operation of constructing and designing the Trevi Fountain was put into the hands of Jacopo della Porta and Bartolomeo Gritti and their two excellent assistants, the administrators Orazio Nari and Luca Peto. Learning from experience, one of the conditions imposed for the design of the Trevi Fountain was “that the architects for the Aqua from Salone must make written reports every two weeks to the Deputies on the work done by the masons and the money which should be paid to them for their work on the fountain”. Under this new and more business-like management, “on 15 August” the new water was at last “seen to flow, to joyous applause, from the already prepared Fonte nel Trivio [sic] into the large fountain basin”. Since we’ve leaped so quickly from the source to the Trevi fountain itself, let’s abandon the former and at last put our minds solely to the latter. Back to Origins of the Trevi Fountain Home Page
