The Trevi Fountain and Paul V (1605-23)
It is impossible to say why Jacopo’s fountain designs were not carried out. It may have been because of his death. Still, I hardly think Rome suffered much from the loss of that fountain.
So the problem remained unsolved and cropped up again at the time of Paul V, the pope who, as I have mentioned before, was responsible for a considerable number of fountains in the City of Rome. In fact, a very well known representation of Rome by Giovanni Maggi, “drafted and carved in wood at the time of Paul V”, puts the Trevi Fountain in the same location (alongside the ancient “trough”) as Tempesta’s sketches of 1593 and 1606. Surprisingly, though, instead of the fountain looking more or less as it was on those maps, Maggi’s woodcut depicts an enormous façade, almost identical to the Moses
fountain, though without any sculptures in the three niches. However could this plan for the fountain, which is a very accurate rendering of The City of Rome at that time, include a façade at once so clearly drawn yet so far from reality, since we are sure it was never built in that style?
When we looked at the fountain by Paolo Strada, we saw that, in 1610, in order to have a more convenient and more direct route for papal processions between the Quirinale and the Vatican, Paul V decided to demolish the houses that were in the way and open up a road that would be almost a straight line linking the northern entrance of the Quirinale with the square at Trinità dei Monti. The first section of this “New Road” is now Via della Panetteria which, at that time, was immediately behind the Trevi fountain, whereas today it is on the right.
As well as opening up the new road, operations were undertaken to redevelop and widen the street with which it formed a crossroads, which then became known as “Piazza Sciarra”; this street ran alongside the Trevi fountain as far as the little church of San Nicola in Arcione (or San Nicola at Capo le Case, as it was sometimes called) – and, in today’s terms corresponds exactly with the direct line of Via delle Muratte – Piazza di Trevi – Via del Lavatore.
In order to complete these works, it was necessary to demolish not only the last few arches of the Trevi water aqueduct – visible both in the sketch by Dupérac (1577) and the one by Tempesta (1606), but not in Maggi’s woodcut – but also a part of the fountain itself, which would have made the new road too narrow at that point. Now, it is only too clear that if, as well as the arches, one side of the Trevi fountain had to be knocked down in order to redevelop the area that was too narrow, there must also have been a scheme to rebuild the fountain. Maggi’s plan of Rome is proof of this: because he was creating it when the demolition works were still underway, instead of depicting heaps of rubble or temporary walls, he provided a “preview” of the monument that had been chosen for construction. Next Page...
