Fraschetti, it seems, was actually correct, not because of the attribution, but because the design does have a noticeable similarity to Bernini. At this point there can be no doubt that the second, if not the first, was the inspiration for Salvi’s arrangement that in the spirit of the 18th century was formal and extremely successful. Although the arrangement is not as amazing as the architecture or the crags that had caused the artists so much trouble. At this point we wonder if the Bernini design for the Trevi was known to anyone else besides Salvi. There is some evidence that would lead us to say yes.
Salvi, who had been plagued with arthritis causing paralyses since 1745, actually died on February 6th, 1751. The architect for the Aqua Vergine, and therefore the Trevi, that was called upon to succeed Salvi was Giuseppe Pannini. It was revealed in 1762 at the fountains inauguration that he had made a series of modification to Salvi’s work. These modifications were also inexplicable. The two main modifications included the two bas-reliefs, one with Agrippa giving orders for the construction of the aqueduct, and the virgin showing the soldiers where the water was, were present in the original Bernini design, but the first was portrayed differently. From the engraving, from 1745, Salvi had two niches under the bas releifs, with a wooden statue of Agrippa and the virgin was also a wooden statue.
Pannini, having Bernini’s plan in front of him, substituted the statue of Agrippa with a female figure, notably Abundance with a cornucopia. He replaced the virgin with Health. The interesting fact here is that Pannini failed to notice that he repeated one of the statues that were carved higher up. Abundance or Harvest is seen higher up with her cornucopia again. So maybe the niches were more symbolic of something else, and not just a generic woman.
Pannini made another important modification to the center of the rocks as well. From the engraving, Salvi created a road between the rocks directly in front of Neptune’s statue. Pannini chose to replace the road with the three basins that exists today. The pools were positioned to look like steps with the bottom on being larger. In conclusion, Pannini did alter the original plans of Salvi, but in doing so, he was able to reproduce the three small basins that Bernini had designed under the hooves of the stamping Pegasus.
