The Trevi Fountain

One of Rome’s more surprising sights, the Trevi Fountain is a huge, Baroque gush of water over statues and rocks built into the backside of a Renaissance palace.

There was a Trevi fountain , designed by Alberti, around the corner in Via dei Crociferi, a smaller, more modest affair by all accounts, but Urban VIII decided to upgrade it in line with his other grandiose schemes of the time and employed Bernini, among others , to design an alternative nearby.

Work didn’t begin until 1732, when Niccolo Salvi won a competition held by Clement XII to design the fountain, and even then it took thirty years to finish the project.

It’s now of course, the place you come to chuck in a coin if you want to guarantee your return to Rome.

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