Correcting its False History
St. John Lateran's Little Fountain
This little fountain stands on almost the exact site of a mediaeval fountain that used to face the ancient basilica of St. John Lateran. It seems all the tinier for being near the gigantic Egyptian obelisk that Domenico Fontana had dragged and erected here in 1588 -- and which may be a classic example of the incorrect information that one so often hears about Rome's monuments.
The main thing all the writers who have ever considered this fountain agree on unanimously is that it should be attributed to Domenico Fontana, simply because of this obelisk. Yet, there is no reason why they should not have corrected this error: all they had to do was read the famous book written by Domenico himself, in which he lists all the works he so carefully demolished or built in Rome at the orders of Sixtus V. If they had done so, they would have noticed that in the two long pages he devotes to the erection of the obelisk at the Lateran, and in the following page about "leveling" the square, he makes not the slightest reference to this fountain, which he most certainly would have done if he had been its architect.
Nor will you have any further doubts if you remember that there is no sign of this fountain in Giovanni Magi's quite modest album of engravings of Rome, published for Holy Year 1600, although it does appear in the edition published for the next Holy Year. Clearly, apart from the fact that Domenico had nothing whatever to do with the Lateran fountain, this also dates it to some time after 1600.
And if you still have any lingering doubts, the brief note in Panciroli's golden book Tesori nascosti dell'alma città di Roma (Hidden treasures of the bountiful city of Rome - 1625) about the date of this fountain would seem sufficient to banish them. Panciroli writes as follows: "At the foot of the obelisk springs a fountain with an abundance of water, built at the expense of the chapter [the canons of the basilica] in 1607." Then, if you look at the fountain you will see that Panciroli's description is absolutely correct: in fact, the spread eagle (which used to spout water) and the two big dragons spurting water into the double shell are clear allusions to the Borghese coat-of-arms and therefore to Paul V, who was the pontiff at that time (1605-21). As usual, however, things were not quite so simple.
First, it has to be said that the Lateran fountain we see today was severely mutilated in the second half of the 19th century when a statue of the St. John the Evangelist was removed from the top of the rear panel. The statue was of the saint seated between two enormous fleurs-de-lys, but I have no idea where the saint or the lilies ended up.
