The Trevi Fountain is Rome's most theatrical piece of urban architecture — a baroque collision of sculpted gods, rearing horses, and crashing water wedged into the back of a palazzo as if the sea itself had burst through the city walls. Designed by Nicola Salvi and completed in 1762 after nearly a century of competing proposals, it marks the terminal point of the ancient Aqua Virgo aqueduct, which has been feeding the fountain's basin since 19 BC. The central figure of Oceanus, commanding his shell-shaped chariot, projects an almost absurd grandeur for a structure tucked into such a narrow piazza — and that surprise, turning a corner to find something this monumental, is half the experience.
Monument