Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi

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Detail of the Fountain of the Four Rivers.

The Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi or 'Fountain of the Four Rivers' occupies the center of the large oval Piazza Navona in Rome. It is a masterpiece of Gianlorenzo Bernini's, and emblematic of the dynamic and dramatic effects sought by high Baroque artists. It was erected in 1651 in front of the church of Sant'Agnese in Agone, and yards from the Pamphilj Palace belonging to this fountain's patron, Innocent X,(1644-1655). The fountain was unveiled to the Roman public during celebrations held on the 12th June 1651.

Bernini's design was selected in competition.

So strong was the sinister influence of the rivals of Bernini on the mind of Innocent X that when he planned to set up in Piazza Navona the great obelisk brought to Rome by the Emperor Caracalla which had been buried for a long time at Capo di Bove for the adornment of a magnificent fountain, the Pope had designs made by the leading architects of Rome without an order for one to Bernini. Prince Niccolò Ludovisi, whose wife was niece to the pope, persuaded Bernini to prepare a model, and arrange for it to be secretly installed in a room in the Palazzo Pamphilj which the Pope had to pass. When the meal was finished, seeing such a noble creation, he stopped almost in ecstasy. Being prince of the keenest judgment and the loftiest ideas, after admiring it, said: “This is a trick … It will be necessary to employ Bernini in spite of those who do not wish it, for he who desires not to use Bernini’s designs, must take care not to see them.”

Paraphrase from Filippo Baldinucci, The life of Cavaliere Bernini (1682) [1]

Public fountains in Rome served multiple purposes: first, they were highly needed sources of water for neighbors in the centuries prior to home plumbing. Second, they were monuments to the papal patrons. Earlier Bernini fountains had been the Fountain of the Triton in Piazza Barberini, the fountain of the Moor in the southern end of Piazza Navona erected during the Barberini papacy, and the Neptune and Triton for Villa Montalto, whose statuary now resides at Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

This fountain means to depict allegories for the four great rivers in the four continents recognized by the Renaissance geographers: the Nile in Africa [2], Ganges in Asia [3], Danube in Europe [4][5], and Río de la Plata in America [6]. Each has animals, plants, or river gods with sometimes awkward racial physiques to carry forth the identification. Each has a river god, semi-prostrate, in awe of the central tower, epitomized by the slender Egyptian obelisk (built for the Roman Serapeum in AD 81) [7], symbolizing by Papal power surmounted by the Pamphilij symbol (dove). In addition, the fountain is a theater in the round, a spectacle of action, that can be strolled around. Water flows and splashes from a jagged and pierced mountainous disorder of travertine marble. A legend, common with tour-guides, is that Bernini positioned the cowering Nile River as if the sculpture was fearing the facade by his rival Borromini could crumble against him.

The dynamic fusion of architecture and sculpture made this fountain revolutionary when compared to prior Roman projects, such as the stilted designs Acqua Felice and Paola by Fontana in Piazza San Bernardo (1585-87) or the customary embellished geometric floral-shaped basin below a jet of water such as the Fontanina in Piazza Campitelli (1589) by Giacomo della Porta.

In Dan Brown's 2000 thriller Angels and Demons, the fountain is listed as one of the Altars of Science that pays tribute to water as one of the classical elements.