The Big Mask
The "Big Mask" in Via Giulia
For the same reasons that affected the two fountains in Piazza Farnese, Jacopo della Porta was unable to carry out the decision taken by the "Congregation for the Fountains" in 1570 to build a fountain in Via Giulia. In fact, although the Aqua Vergine had reached Campo dei Fiori, there was hardly enough water to support a fountain there at ground level and the supply was almost entirely used up by public fountains and private consumers. The idea that water could go beyond Piazza Farnese and as far as Via Giulia was simply not in the cards. It was only many years later, when Paul V brought in the mighty flow of "his" water that a fountain could at last be built on the same spot as the one planned for the Aqua Vergine.
In the quiet and ancient Via Giulia you will find this modest fountain backed up against the wall. The fountain consists of an ancient porphyry trough (taken from the Roman baths) surmounted by a large marble tablet with a kind of scroll on each side, both scrolls topped with balls made of travertine stone. The center of the tablet is occupied entirely by an enormous mask in white marble, which must certainly also date back to the Ancient Romans. With hair parted in the middle and falling below the chin to frame the face and with a fixed, empty look in its eyes, water spurts from the figure's half-open mouth to fall into the shell below. At the very top of the tablet there is a huge fleur de lys, a sure sign that the "Big Mask" was erected under the auspices and at the expense of the Farnese family, most likely at the same time as the construction of the two fountains in the Piazza Farnese just around the corner around 1626.
Today, Via Giulia is quiet and rather forgotten, but when Julius II had it opened up at the beginning of the 16th century it was the main street and the most elegant road in the city, remaining that way for many years. It was used for many festivals and ceremonies, so it is only natural that even the motionless and severe-looking mask fountain should have shared in the general hullabaloo. What happened was this: in 1720, on the third day of Pentecost, all the Roman nobles wanted to take the air in Via Giulia to show off their most precious finery and their most expensively furnished carriages in honor of the election of a new Grand Master of Malta. When the time came for Vespers, a copious stream of delicious wine began to flow from the Big Farnese Mask fountain and it did not stop till four in the morning. It was the wish of the authorities to extend the day's rejoicing into the evening, with a pleasing display of fireworks and, before that, to illuminate the street with huge round flat tallow candles.
Finally, still on the subject of festivals in Via Giulia, I would like to mention an interesting contest that was held there at the beginning of the 17th century. With the passing years, all trace of it has vanished, but it would be fantastic if it could be revived. One evening, along our street, at the expense of the individuals and with the permission of the authorities, a race took place between naked hunchbacks, whose humps were all so different that it made them a real sight worth seeing; this was a novelty in Via Giulia, so many commoners and nobles gathered to look until the whole area was full, and all the windows in the houses and all the buildings were full of people.