Outdoor Public Fountains of Rome
Despite this patently clear and precise statement by Vanvitelli (one of the major architects of the 18th century), Pecchiai - who was the first to discover this important document - nonetheless preferred to believe that the attribution was "one of those anachronisms that are common enough when popular imagination comes into play, because, as the fountain could not be earlier than the pontificate of Gregory XIII - or more specifically, the time when public fountains began to be built in the City - when this one was erected Buonarroti had already been sleeping in eternal rest in Florence for at least a decade". Now, the idea that before Gregory XIII it was impossible even to build a little fountain is absurd, because - as we will see later - the Aqua Vergine (the Trevi water) that flowed from the Porter was in good working order before Pope Gregory's time. Moreover, I see no reason why anyone should prefer the words of the often ill-informed Alberto Cassio to the authoritative statement by Vanvitelli (who was the first to mention Michelangelo in connection with the Porter) just because, in 1756, Cassio refuted the attribution on the grounds that the wall fountain was not mentioned in Vasari's list of Michelangelo's works. On the contrary, I put my belief in the categorical statement by Vanvitelli - a man who was extremely well known at that time - written (we must remember) as part of a detailed inventory in which he gives brief descriptions and the precise attribution of the various paintings then present, and written not for any private individual but for the Company of Jesus. Indeed, instead of taking it that Vanvitelli's declaration was just a repetition of tradition, if not a pure figment of his imagination, we should consider it simply as evidence of a very minor work by Michelangelo. For the evidence, probably taken from documents in the archives, is not without foundation, even if the work is outside our usual "heroic" view of the artist and it may well be that the fountain was sculpted to one of his designs and included in the wall of a building belonging to a noble Florentine family, especially when the building is said to be by Michelangelo himself and when he himself carved the beautiful tomb of one of that family's most illustrious members.
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