THE GARDENS OF ITALY. 
It was reserved for Clement XIII., in the 
eighteenth century, to inaugurate the fountain as 
we now see it; an edifice which throws all other 
fountains of Rome almost into the shade. The 
origin of its design has been much disputed. The 
art of constructing these grandiose fountains seemed 
to have died with Bernini, and it is difficult to 
believe that we do not here see his inspiration. It 
has all his fantastic impetuosity, his vigour, and his 
feeling for decoration, It is satisfactory that the 
researches of Signor Fraschetti have gone far to 
establish Bernini’s claims to its conception. More 
than one diary of the time records that Bernini 
was planning a great facade for Pope Urban’s new 
fountain, and Prince Doria possesses a sketch signed 
by Bernini and stamped by Innocent X., which has 
evidently been the design for the central group. 
It has the figure of Neptune grasping the trident 
and rising from a shell, the sea-horses, the dolphins, 
and the merman sounding his wreathed horn, 
Bernini always made numbers of sketches for every 
work he undertook. The first design of Salvi, 
whose nominal work it is, and who had the 
principal direction of it, is much nearer the Doria 
sketch than the ultimate execution, and in an 
account of him in the Vatican library his study of 
and reverence for Bernini’s work is specially dwelt 
upon. 
The ornamentation of the fountain was 
carried out under Benedict XIII. In February, 
1730, a mass of marble for the statues was 
landed at Ripa Grande, and Domenica Fontana 
and other sculptors were at work on them. In 
October, 1732, they began to pull down the old 
fountain, and the Vatican archives are full of notes 
of progress and payments. What was meant to be 
the last sum was adjudged in 1735, for the central 
crown, but a little later another fifteen thousand 
crowns was offered for the final decorations. 
Niccola Salvi died, old and paralysed, before it was 
finished, which was not till 1762. It seems 
probable that he unearthed and modified the design 
of the great sel-cento artist, but we cannot credit 
him with the originality and decorative feeling 
which he showed in nothing else. The design is, 
indeed, to some extent spoilt by alteration, for 
Prince Doria’s sketch is far more spirited. The 
god of the ocean is more majestic, the horses are 
more wild and graceful, and the fountain group 
looks cold and mannered by contrast. It is 
curious that public opinion, without troubling 
itself to enquire, has always attributed the fountain 
to Bernini. 
Memoirs of the time relate how fond Alfieri 
the poet was of Trevi, and how he would come 
there at daybreak on a summer morning, from his 
house near Diocletian’s baths, and sit on one of the 
low benches fashioned out of the rock, close to the 
water’s edge, and stay there dreaming and listening 
to the water, till the noise and bustle of the waking 
town drove him away. How many people have 
stopped to drink of the water, half-mocking at, 
half-believing in, the superstition that says it will 
bring them back to Rome? It is a spell that 
has little force in these days of easy travel, when 
a run to Italy for a few weeks is a thing of yearly 
occurrence. It was different in the days when it 
was one of the great events of a lifetime, and when 
comparatively few could hope to make the long 
and costly journey a second time. 
