Pope Innocent's Fountain
St. Peter's Square Fountain
There is something not everyone knows about this square. Centuries ago, before Bernini created the present arrangement with the huge colonnades, the square was much narrower and the old square portico at the front of the basilica extended almost as far as the obelisk. At that time, the very beginning of the 16th century, the area was used for bullfights. It was probably the Borgia Pope Alexander VI (1492-1503), a Spaniard, who introduced them to Rome. In any case, bullfights took place all over the city.
Burckard, a well-known 15th/16th century writer, has left us a brief description of St. Peter's Square on the Feast of St. John in the year 1500: "the area was boarded off from the corner of the Palace Guardians' block to the fountain built by Innocent [VIII], and from there right up to the church of San Martinello -- almost the whole center of the present square. Five or six bulls were released into the ring. Among many others, Duke Valentino entered on horseback, striking at the animals until he had killed them all."
An ambassador from Epheus also gave high praise to the bullfights, in which Duke Valentino; Cesare Borgia, the son of Alexander VI, distinguished himself. The Turk wrote to the Venetian Senate as follows: "The Pope Alexander VI loves and is very much afraid for his son, the Duke, who is 27, with a good body, tall and well made, better than King Ferandin [Ferdinand], who, on horseback, in a game at St. Peter's in an enclosure made of planks, killed seven wild bulls, and fought like a tiger cutting a bull's head off with his first stroke, something all Rome considered marvelous."
Leaving aside the question of bullfights, I would like to draw your attention to "Innocent's fountain," which Burckard mentioned in the passage quoted above. When Burckard was writing, the fountain was quite new, as you will see if I refer to another diarist: "In 1490, His Holiness [Innocent VIII] built a most noble fountain at the end of St. Peter's Square, with decorated marble tablets and two small round basins, one above the other, as you can see; everyone thinks there is nothing of its kind anywhere else in Italy." The exact position of this fountain can be pinpointed thanks to a plan of the square made about two centuries later, during the massive reorganization. At that time, in order to line up the fountain with the obelisk and the other fountain planned for the opposite side of the square, Bernini moved the old fountain (built for Pope Innocent but already renovated by Maderno) a few yards closer to the basilica.
