Roaming in Rome!

Let’s take a trip to Rome today with my sketch of the Trevi fountain! 

Done from a photo taken one one of my many trips to Italy. Sketching the fountain in situ is virtually impossible due to the many tourists and probably not a great idea due to the street vendors and pickpockets. 

I must admit I had difficulty finding the fountain on my first trip, I was expecting some kind of huge piazza with this magnificent fountain (the biggest in Rome) in the middle. When I finally found my way through a tiny side street, it was the smell of chlorine that made me realise I was there, a magnificent Baroque building filling a pokey little square. 

The name Trevi itself comes from the Italian for the crossing of three streets (tre vie) and the fountain itself is one of the original Roman drinking fountains. During Roman times the water came by aqueduct from 20km outside the city. 

Bernini was given the project of designing a magnificent fountain originally but the death of Pope Urban VIII saw construction halted, no fountain in sight but the piazza itself had been expanded. Pope Clement XII decided to complete the task and ordered a competition to find the best design, rumour has it that Nicola Salvi who designed the Trevi fountain that we now know wasn’t in fact the winner of the competition; a relative of Galileo won but as a Florentine the choice wasn’t popular with the Romans. The Roman Nicola Salvi began work  in 1732, the fountain took thirty years to complete and is 30m high and 20m wide, dwarfing the square in which it now stands. Water-themed, the central figure is Oceanus whose arrival is being announced by Tritons and flanked by statues of ''health'' and ''abundance''. The fountain consumed honking amounts of Travertine from nearby Tivoli and Carrera marble and is absolutely gobsmacking! 

No visit to the Trevi fountain is complete without throwing in a coin, tradition says one coin guarantees a return to Rome, two coins for love and three for marriage! On my first visit I threw in one and have been back several times, so it obviously works! 

Tourists throw in about 3000€ per day, the money is fished out and given to an Italian charity providing food for the homeless! Beautiful as the aqua coloured water is, resist the desire to jump in it'll cost you 500€ (stealing coins is similarly a big No No!). 

I'd love to be there right now, listening to the water splash and enjoying the glare of the sun on that pristine Travertine. That’s the nice thing about sketching, you can visit your sketches whenever you want!