The Return of the Basin
The fountain was a real "drinking trough," since it had to serve the regular cattle market in Campo Vaccino, to which succeedingly brutish generations had reduced their illustrious ancestors' ancient Forum. It consisted of a splendid, gigantic, red porphyry basin which that likeable man, Flaminio Vacca, once described. He wrote that in front of the statue of Marforio, in its original location near the Arch of Septimius Severus, the Romans "found a great cup of granite, which today serves as the fountain in the middle of the Roman Forum; it is used for watering the beasts brought to market in that place." The basin, set directly on the ground, contained a huge mask set into its upper part, from which a considerable quantity of water poured forth.
At this point, to avoid repeating the usual threatening edicts regarding cleanliness -- which applied even to this drinking trough -- and prohibiting "carriage drivers, donkey drivers…" from "daring to wash coaches, barrows or anything else, or washing or cleaning the wheels thereof" anywhere near the fountain -- and to prove that occasionally these regulations were observed to the letter -- I need only quote Rodolfo Lanciani who, in 1900, wrote of this basin: "I understood from what my father said that the carters working on Napoleon I's excavations in Campo Vaccino used to drive their vehicles across the fountain, to save themselves the trouble of washing the wheels during the summer heat."
So, this magnificent basin was removed from its place close to the Temple of the Dioscuri in 1816 and transferred to Piazza Monte Cavallo, to rest at the feet of the colossal statues of the Dioscuri themselves. In honor of the occasion, the municipal storerooms also unearthed a beautiful round baluster, the very one that, in days gone by, stood beneath the basin when it was still near the Arch of Septimius Severus. It was this baluster that Jacopo had refused for his fountain in Campo Vaccino. Finally, the basin was put back on its old support and set in the center of a low, wide, circular pool protected by a ring of little posts; only then was an inscription carved on the base of the obelisk: "Pius VII Pont. Max. completed the unfinished part of this group, adding the basin and making the water pour forth. In the year 1818, the 19th of his pontificate."
