Aim higher, reach further.

Masterpiece: Let the Praises Flow

As a way to advertise the gift of water no device could be more obvious, but Bernini's fountain celebrates Pope Urban VIII for more than that. ENLARGE
As a way to advertise the gift of water no device could be more obvious, but Bernini's fountain celebrates Pope Urban VIII for more than that. AFP/Getty Images

Of Rome's estimated 2,000 fountains, the most beloved appear in settings that seem exquisitely well suited, almost designed, for them. The Trevi Fountain spreads across a long side of an oblong pedestrian square, looming over the viewer like a Baroque version of an IMAX 3-D movie. Gian Lorenzo Bernini's Fountain of the Four Rivers soars from the center of the majestic outdoor drawing room that is Piazza Navona. And in quiet little Piazza Mattei, one can easily hear the delicate streams of the beguiling Turtle Fountain.

The great exception to this rule is Triton's Fountain, planted in the center of a traffic circle (actually, a lopsided oval) that all day long is a churning vortex of cars, buses and motor scooters. Yet, even here, Bernini's mid-17th-century sculpture stands as one of the city's most charming landmarks. Approached coming uphill on the Via del Tritone, the chimerical, water-spouting sea god seems to ride in triumph atop a massive wave.

Recently cleaned of 15 years of automotive exhaust, the travertine carving in Piazza Barberini has been restored to something like its original buttery color and texture. Upon inspection, it is not one figure but five, the muscular god straddling the hinge of an open bivalve seashell, which is supported in turn by four stylized dolphins, tails pointed upward and mouths gaping at the edge of the surrounding pool. The ensemble's organic shape lends it unity, reinforced by the constant flow of water, which rises from the conch shell at Triton's mouth, cascades onto the shell beneath him and finally spills over into the basin.

Those who brave the rush of vehicles for a closer look will see the dolphins are paired around two identical sets of emblems: a coat of arms, a papal tiara and two keys. The arms are of the Barberini, the family of Pope Urban VIII, one of a series of popes who patronized Bernini through most of his long career. The Barberini family palace, which rises above the square, is today the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica, whose collection includes Raphael's "La fornarina," also known as "The Portrait of a Young Woman," and Caravaggio's "Judith Beheading Holofernes."

The keys' appearance—in the grip of coiled dolphins' tails—may seem a grotesque or at least irreverent way to treat symbols of what Catholics consider the biblical basis for papal authority. But more exalted examples of Bernini's work show that no disrespect could have been intended or taken: In St. Peter's Basilica, atop his altar canopy and his massive reliquary for the "chair of St. Peter," cherubs play with the pope's keys and tiara as with oversized toys.

Though Christian symbols may strike us as incongruous beneath the figure of a pagan deity, decorating fountains with images of classical sea gods was a convention of the age. And as noted by Bernini's eminent interpreter Rudolf Wittkower, the erection of a pagan symbol in a Catholic setting, such as the Egyptian obelisk that Pope Sixtus V moved to the center of St. Peter's Square in 1586, could signify the church's triumph over idolatrous antiquity. Pope Urban appropriated images of pre-Christian art as he did its materials; he gave Bernini bronze girders from the Pantheon to refashion into the St. Peter's altar canopy, inspiring the Latin quip Quod non fecerunt barbari, fecerunt Barberini ("What the barbarians did not do, the Barberini did").

Urban was a patron not only of the arts but of public works in Rome and throughout the papal states. He built roads, bridges and factories, and extended city walls and harbor facilities. He also restored the Acqua Felice aqueduct, which provided water for the Triton Fountain. In case there was any doubt about the benefits he had bestowed here, the pope had Bernini build a smaller matching fountain a few dozen yards away, at what is now the corner of Via Veneto and Via di San Basilio. This so-called Fountain of the Bees is adorned by a large sea shell and three emblematic Barberini bees, and bears an inscription identifying its purpose as serving the people's needs, as distinct from the larger fountain's "ornamentation of the city."

As a way to advertise a gift of water, no device could be more obvious or natural than a fountain, but Bernini's sculpture of Triton celebrates Urban for more than that. It illustrates a passage from Ovid's "Metamorphoses" that describes the god not providing water but actually taking it away, by calling the waves to recede after a universal flood like the one survived by the biblical Noah. This may have been an allusion to Urban's efforts to keep the peace at home while the Thirty Years War raged across much of Europe. Of course, such references would have been lost on the peasants and urban poor who brought their animals and washing to the square in Bernini's time and for a full two centuries thereafter.

Piazza Barberini, which was once almost rural, is now one of Rome's busiest intersections. The 19th- and 20th-century avenues of Via Veneto and Via Barberini seem like tributaries joining to form Via del Tritone, with the fountain marking the point of their confluence. To latter-day Romans whipping past in traffic or emerging from the subway, this glimpse of the mythical can lend a sense of dynamism and drama to the commuter's odyssey. Bernini's work has not merely survived or adapted to its new surroundings, it redeems them every day.

Francesco Sinibaldi
Francesco Sinibaldi user

Un son d'espérance.

La douce
émotion, quand
une lueur épuisée
revient dans le
noir pour décrire
la jeunesse, est
comme le sourire
qui rappelle la

Francesco Sinibaldi

Show More Archives

Popular on WSJ

Editors’ Picks