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However, when first built, the fountain would not have seemed so intimidating, because the monument consisted only of the lower level which had many different features from those it has today. We know this from the description left by the architect himself (Bartolomeo Ammannati) and from a painting and sketch. The original style was inspired by the great monumental fountains of the Ancient Roman period, of which the last remaining example, at least still partly standing at the time, was the showpiece (known as the Trophies of Marius) at the mouth of the old Aqua Julia in what is now Piazza Vittorio. Pope Julius had his fountain erected on the perimeter (i.e. at the side of the public road) of his "vigna", as the great private landed residences were called then. The "vigna" belonging to Pope Julius was especially famous, for he had spent tremendous sums of money on making it beautiful, employing artists such as Vignola, Ammannati,Vasari and Baronino, and buying up enormous quantities of statues, marble artefacts and other ancient objects, to create an estate with "temples" dedicated to nymphs; lily ponds and fish pools; and pleasure gardens of great renown. Indeed, the pope was so fond of his "vigna" that when, anxious to plan the ceremonies, the ushers asked him, "Your Holiness, shall we be going to Consistory tomorrow?", he sometimes replied, "No, tomorrow we are going to my vigna".
So the original monument, completed in 1553 (the third year of the pontificate of Pope Julius), had the appearance described by Ammannati himself in a letter: "The beginning of the road creates two facades, with a beautiful fountain, in which the water flows in happy memory of Pope Julius, who had never had any idea that water could be found in this place. Yet, having his villa built there, he spared no expense and had workmen dig deep and diligently from where his residence is today as far as the start of this road to do this good deed for the public. And seeing that his wishes had succeeded, he took pains to build the ornamental monument that stands there now, in the Corinthian style, with columns and pillars and, in the centre, a great stone twelve hand’s-breadths on each side and an inscription that reads: ‘Iulius III Pont. Max. publicae commoditati anno III’, with two niches holding two statues, Felicity and Abundance. Beneath the epitaph is a large and beautiful ancient head of Apollo from which a jet of water is thrown into a fine big granite basin; at the apex are four acroteria [statues or plinths on top of a monument]: on the one side there is the statue of Rome and on the other a statue of Minerva; the other two are granite obelisks, with a statue of Neptune in the centre. They are all antiquities and all most beautiful.
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