Work Started Under Pope Pius VI
Now let us look at the whole area and the arrangements commenced by Pius VI in 1782 following the discovery, the year before, of the obelisk that had been buried beneath Campo Marzio, near the church of San Rocco. Various schemes were suggested to make use of this obelisk, but the favorite was the idea of erecting it between the two horses in front of the Quirinale. The job was given to the architect, Giovanni Antinori, who began by dismantling and removing the fountain of Monte Cavallo. However, Antinori made many failed attempts before he finally managed to pull the two colossi into the new positions and the arduous task, including setting up the obelisk, was not completed until 1786. Of course, the Romans had to flog the situation for all it was worth -- in an anagram of the architect's name, Antinori became Non tirai: "I was not pulling."
The new arrangement in Rome met with some approval and considerable criticism. I believe the criticism is implied in the following excerpt of a letter written by Milizia (Opere, IX, 277): "If you could see how the Horses at Monte Cavallo are arranged you would get angry, as anyone with eyes gets angry. But what really makes my blood boil is that these monuments were absolutely fine as they were. This idiot of an architect must be cross-eyed if he can't tell what's good from what's dreadful. Yet no one gives a hang and he's allowed to do whatever his crazy mind tells him." The "talking statues" had something to say about it too: hardly had the Horses been turned around than, one morning, over the inscription of the left-hand pedestal -- "OPUS PHIDIAE" -- was written "OPUS perPHIDIAE Pii Sexti" [instead of "the work of Phidia," it became "the work of perfidious Pius VI"].
With regard to the fountain (still in pieces) it was decreed "that [the Spire] shall at once be perfectly cleaned, the said architect shall erect the fountain that, in accordance with his design, must be placed beneath the pedestal of the aforementioned Spire." In that design, Antinori had already decided to place the great cup of oriental granite, 27 hands in diameter, that exists almost unused in Campo Vaccino, to act as a drinking trough for animals.
Despite these proposals and the explicit declaration (still visible) that Pius VI had carved into the pedestal of the obelisk -- which records the works of Sixtus V and the origin of the obelisk before stating that he [Pius VI] ordered "the fountain with its jets of water to be rebuilt" -- the fountain was in fact promptly reconstructed in 1818, just 32 years later, by the architect Raffaele Stern.
I mentioned earlier that as part of his new plans Pius VI intended to make use of the granite basin from the fountain in Campo Vaccino, as the Roman Forum was then called. This fountain, almost immediately behind the ruins of the Temple of the Dioscuri, had been built on the course of the Aqua Felice conduit in 1593 by the stonemason Bartolomeo Bassi on the orders and to the design and method of Master Jacomo della Porta. Surprise, surprise! Furthermore, della Porta directed that Master Bartolomeo should make "a work of smooth white marble in accordance with the said drawing, with polished incisions to be well made by the able fellow."
