Roman Fountains

The Trevi Fountain is probably the best known Roman fountain, after Fellini memorialized it in 'La Dolce Vita'. It is a more modern fountain than many of the famous Bernini fountains (I love his fountains in the Piazza Navona--they are symbolic and spectacular in equal parts), but he did have a hand in the designing of the current fountain. The way the fountain is situated is his idea--the rest is the work of other designers who came after him.
I did not realize that the location is a very old one. The aqueduct bringing the water into the city was submerged, and the site was a public bathing house, starting in 19 BC. The Aqua Virgo served Rome for 400 years and it's destruction was the coup de grâce for the urban life of late classical Rome came when the Goth besiegers in 537/38 broke the aqueducts. Medieval Romans were reduced to drawing water from polluted wells and the Tiber River, which was also used as a sewer. All good things must end, it appears.

The modest fountain at the foot of the Spanish Steps was completed by Bernini's father in 1629. Please note the house to the right of the steps. The great Romantic poet John Keats died there at the painfully young age of 25 in 1821. Today it houses a museum dedicated to Keats and Shelley, and there are a few English establishments on the block. The fountain is quaint by Rome standards, but very elegant, and both these fountains are exquisite at night. One of the people who previously stayed in the apartment we rented recommends seeing everything that you can at night, and I would agree with that sentiment.