84 
THE GARDENS OF ITALY. 
94. — THE ACQl’A PAULA ON THE JANICULUM. 
It is thought that in classic times a fountain must have stood near where the famous one is 
now placed, for an inscription was found in the immediate neighbourhood which evidently 
belonged to such a structure : 
X_vmpli of tliis place, guardian of the sacred stream, 
I sleep, watch o'er me, while its murmur fills my dream. 
O, you who approach this fount and tread its marbles, 
Disturb me not, if you bathe or drink, be silent. 
Nicholas V had already begun a fountain to a design in which, by three aqueducts, through 
three masks, the water was arranged to flow into a marble shell. This was the work of Leon 
Battista Alberta, and we cannot help giving a sigh over one of the beautiful lost works of the 
Renaissance. At that time, as Vasari tells us, the fountain faced towards Piazza Poli, but 
Urban VIII turned it round, as it is at present. In Via Nazzareno may be seen the low 
door which gives access to the aqueduct. It is large enough for a boat with two men to 
ascend it for some distance. The archives relate that on July 8th, 1643, Pope LUban, leaving 
the Vatican, went to stay at Monte Cavallo, and stopped on his way to see the Fountain of 
Trevi, which had just been turned about. Above it were raised the arms of Nicholas V, who 
had restored it. Pope Urban threw down the houses that had stood behind the fountain 
and made a piazza, so that it could be seen from Monte Cavallo, and, the pressure of the water 
being increased, it rose much higher than before. This Pope proposed to erect a grand 
fountain, and, with Bernini’s co-operation, planned to adorn it with statues taken from the 
tomb of Cecilia Metella ; but the popular outcry against the dismantling of this splendid 
relic of antiquity was so strong that the Pope thought it prudent to abandon his project. As he 
had also laid a very unpopular tax upon wine, Pasquino wrote the following couplet upon him : 
Urban having raised the tax upon wine, 
Regaled tlie people of the Ouirinal with water. 
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 
