Fontana del Tritone

Listen first. Under the noise of scooters and taxis circling Piazza Barberini, there is a steady sound of falling water. It is soft and constant, like rain on a stone roof. Now look up from the street. A muscular sea god kneels on an open shell. His head is thrown back, and he blows a single jet of water from a conch into the Roman sky. This is the Fontana del Tritone, the Triton Fountain. It is a small piece of the ocean, set down in the middle of a traffic island.

The man behind it was Gian Lorenzo Bernini, the sculptor who shaped the look of Baroque Rome more than anyone else. Baroque is the dramatic, theatrical style that filled Rome in the seventeenth century. Bernini finished this fountain in the early 1640s. It was one of his first public fountains, made before his famous Fountain of the Four Rivers in Piazza Navona. Here, you can see him testing ideas he would use for the rest of his life: stone that seems to move, and water that becomes part of the sculpture.

The patron was Pope Urban VIII. Before he became pope, his name was Maffeo Barberini. His powerful family built the large palace just up the hill behind you, the Palazzo Barberini. So this square was, in a sense, the family's front garden. A fountain here was not only a gift of water to the city. It was also a public signature. It told every passer-by exactly who held power in Rome at that moment.

Look closely at the base, and you will find that signature carved into the stone. Four dolphins hold up the great shell. Their tails twist together in the middle. Between those tails sit the papal keys, the papal crown, and the Barberini coat of arms. On that coat of arms are bees. The bee was the symbol of the Barberini family. Once you notice them, you will start to see Barberini bees on buildings, doorways and church ceilings all over Rome.

Now follow the figure upward. Triton comes from Greek and Roman mythology. He was a son of the sea god Poseidon, whom the Romans called Neptune. In the poems of Ovid, a Roman poet, Triton blows his shell to call back the waters after a great flood. Many scholars think Bernini had this story in mind. It suits a fountain well: a god who controls water, placed where fresh water arrives in the city.

And that water had a long journey. It came from the Acqua Felice, an aqueduct that had been rebuilt by an earlier pope in the late sixteenth century. It brought water from the hills east of Rome. Here is a detail most visitors miss. This part of the city sits fairly high, so the water pressure was modest. Bernini could not count on a tall, powerful jet. So he did something clever. He raised Triton up on his shell and lifted the conch high, so even a gentle stream would look like a fountain reaching for the sky.

The material is travertine. It is the creamy, porous limestone that built much of Rome, including the Colosseum. Look at the surface and you will see small holes and pits in the stone. Over centuries, water and weather have softened the edges. Green and dark streaks run where the water flows most. The shell, the dolphins, and Triton himself were all carved from this stone. Bernini gave it the feeling of wet skin and slippery fins.

Walk slowly around the basin, because the fountain changes with every step. From one side, Triton looks calm, almost resting. From another, his back muscles twist and strain as he blows. The dolphins' mouths open wide, their eyes bulge, and their tails coil above their heads. Bernini designed this to be seen from all directions. In the seventeenth century, that was still quite a new idea for a fountain in the open street.

When Bernini made it, the square looked very different. It was quieter, with carriages and people on foot instead of cars. Today, Piazza Barberini is one of the busiest crossroads in central Rome. Several major streets meet here, and the fountain stands in the middle like a rock in a river of traffic. It is worth thinking about this contrast. A sea god, carved for a slower city, still holds his pose while buses turn around him.

Before you leave, turn toward the corner where the square meets Via Veneto. There, close to the wall, is a much smaller fountain. It is the Fontana delle Api, the Fountain of the Bees. Bernini designed it as a companion piece shortly after the Triton. Three stone bees crawl over an open shell, drinking the water. The original was taken apart in the nineteenth century, and what you see today is a later reconstruction. Still, it carries the same family message, at a smaller and more playful scale.

The Barberini were not loved by everyone. A well-known Roman saying from that time plays on the family name. In Latin, it says that what the barbarians did not do, the Barberini did. The joke was aimed at the pope's reuse of ancient bronze from the Pantheon. It shows how Romans felt about this family. They gave the city great art, but they also took a great deal. This fountain carries both sides of that story.

That street at the corner, Via Veneto, has its own fame. In the 1950s and 1960s, it was a centre of Roman nightlife, with cafés, film stars and photographers. Federico Fellini's film La Dolce Vita made it famous around the world. So within a short walk, you have the papal power of the seventeenth century and the cinema glamour of the twentieth. Both left their mark on this one small square.

Stay a moment longer by the water. Feel the light spray when the wind turns. Watch the pigeons drink from the edge of the basin, and the people waiting at the crossing who never look up. You are not like them now. When you walk away, listen for the sound of water behind you, fading into the traffic. And keep an eye out for bees in the stone. Rome is full of them, if you know where to look.