Fontana della Barcaccia, Rome

Here, at the base of the Spanish Steps in Piazza di Spagna, the Fontana della Barcaccia takes the form of a boat fountain. Its low, half-sunk vessel makes the water seem to have settled into the square rather than arrived with ceremony. Pope Urban the Eighth engaged Pietro Bernini for this commission in sixteen twenty-three, and the work reached completion in sixteen twenty-nine.

The fountain’s unusual sunken arrangement answers a practical problem: the Acqua Vergine aqueduct delivered too little force here for lofty jets. Water spills gently over the vessel’s lowered sides into the basin. It emerges from seven outlets, including faces shaped as suns within the boat and openings aimed outward along its hull.

The papal emblems at the boat’s ends belong to the Barberini family of Urban the Eighth. Local legend connects this design with a small boat swept into the piazza during the Tiber flood of fifteen ninety-eight and abandoned there as the river withdrew. The fountain’s quiet sound also reached John Keats during his final illness nearby, helping inspire the wording of his epitaph.