Page 3
From the description given by the architect himself it is clear that the appearance of this beautiful fountain changed considerably when the second level was added by Pirro Ligorio in 1562. The acroteria, i.e. the three statues and two obelisks, were removed from the top and the two statues (Felicity and Abundance) also disappeared from the side niches, though no one knows when or where they finished up. The papal coat-of-arms, which had been in the arch beneath the architrave, was transferred to its present location in the centre of the tympan, which was split especially to take it; its former place was taken by the long and tortuous Latin inscription resembling the unending manifestos that the Civic Authorities used to put up on the city walls. The practice occurred frequently, and especially on 21 April each year, the date of Rome’s "birthday". Of course, no one ever had the time or the wish to read the posters! Nonetheless, it is my duty to say that the inscription records that "In the jubilee year of 1750 (when Monsignor Pietro Petroni was the Minister for Water), Fabrizio Colonna dedicated this plaque to Benedict XIV because he had diverted the Aqua Vergine to the nearby road on the suburban properties of the Colonna family, reinstating the water supply that had been interrupted, and because he [Pope Benedict] had granted to the Colonna family’s town houses a two ounce flow of water to be taken from the Trevi basin in place of the small amount supplied for public use."
Luckily for us, the meaning of this inscription – which so resembles a riddle pronounced by one of the oracles – is clearly explained in a manuscript by Pope Benedict XIV. The document declares that, owing to "the spontaneous and voluntary gesture" of the Colonna family in supplying the public fountain at Villa Julia with a two ounce flow of water from their property, the Pontiff feels obliged, in view of such munificence, to return the favor. It goes on: "We express our pleasure to Prince Fabrizio Colonna and, having heard that in the house in which he lives [maybe near the Santi Apostoli church] there is no Aqua Vergine, we wish him to benefit from our benevolence and hereby order you [Monsignor Petroni] to grant and provide to him and to his heirs and successors, free and without payment, a two ounce flow of water from the Aqueduct of the Trevi Fountain…". In order to understand what the Colonna family has to do with this fountain you need to know that Pope Julius’s "vigna" became the property of Pius IV, who built his residence alongside and above the monumental fountain so as to form a single edifice with the portico at the rear. In fact, if you look at the top of the monument you can see the Medici coat-of-arms. The whole building had hardly been completed when Pius IV gave it to Carlo Cardinal Borromeo who, four years later (1566), in his turn gave the "vigna" as a wedding present to his own sister, Anna, at her marriage to Fabrizio Colonna – and so it came into the hands of the Colonna family.
 |
 |
 |