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Fountain of Four Rivers Rome

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Fenway Leo

Fountain of the Four Rivers (Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi) is a fountain in the Piazza Navona in Rome. It was designed in 1651 by Gian Lorenzo Bernini for Pope Innocent X whose family palace, the Palazzo Pamphili, faced onto the piazza as did the church of Sant'Agnese in Agone of which Innocent was the sponsor.

The base of the fountain is a basin from the centre of which travertine rocks rise to support four river gods and above them, a copy of an Egyptian obelisk surmounted with the Pamphili family emblem of a dove with an olive twig. Collectively, they represent four major rivers of the four continents through which papal authority had spread: the Nile representing Africa, the Danube representing Europe, the Ganges representing Asia, and the Río de la Plata representing the Americas.

The Ganges carries a long oar, representing the river's navigability. The Nile's head is draped with a loose piece of cloth, meaning that no one at that time knew exactly where the Nile's source was. The Danube touches the Pope's personal coat of arms, since it is the large river closest to Rome. And the Río de la Plata is sitting on a pile of coins, a symbol of the riches America could offer to Europe (the word plata means "silver" in Spanish).

Each is a river god, semiprostrate, in awe of the central tower, epitomized by the slender Egyptian obelisk, symbolizing Papal power surmounted by the Pamphili symbol (dove). In addition, the fountain is a theater in the round, a spectacle of action, that can be strolled around. Water flows and splashes from a jagged and pierced mountainous disorder of travertine marble. A legend, common with tourguides, is that Bernini covered the head of the Nile as if the sculpture couldn't bear to look at the facade of the church of Sant'Agnese by his rival Borromini; in reality, the fountain was completed several years before Borromini began work on the church.

posted by nidantsqq