Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi (the Fountain of the Four Rivers, the central fountain of Piazza Navona, designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, commissioned by Pope Innocent X (Giovanni Battista Pamphilj), completed in 1651): the most ambitious single fountain commission in 17th-century Rome and the specific work that re-established Bernini's primacy in the Roman art world after the falling-out of the early Innocent X pontificate (the pope who initially preferred Borromini to Bernini, then commissioned the Quattro Fiumi from Bernini, the specific political maneuver that Bernini executed through the Pamphilj family connections (the presentation of the silver fountain model to Innocent X's sister-in-law Olimpia Maidalchini) that transformed the pope's preference from hostile to enthusiastic).
The Borromini rivalry legend (the most beloved false story in Roman art history): the specific legend claims that the Nile figure (the hooded river god whose face is covered by a cloth) covers his eyes specifically to avoid looking at the façade of Sant'Agnese in Agone (Borromini's church on the western side of Piazza Navona, directly opposite the fountain) in a specific act of Bernini mockery at Borromini's expense. The problem: the Quattro Fiumi was completed in 1651. The Borromini façade of Sant'Agnese was designed in 1652 and built from 1653. Bernini's Nile couldn't be gesturing at a building that didn't exist when the fountain was made. The Nile is hooded because the sources of the Nile were unknown in 1651, the specific geographical fact (the Nile headwaters weren't identified until John Speke's 1862 expedition) that the iconographic program expresses through the covered face.
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Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi: The Four Rivers and the Iconography
The Four River Gods
Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi iconographic program (the four river gods represent the four known continents of the 1651 world: the Nile (Africa, the hooded figure representing the unknown source), the Ganges (Asia, the figure with the oar representing the river's navigation), the Danube (Europe, the figure with the coat of arms of the Pamphilj pope Innocent X), and the Río de la Plata (the Americas, the figure with the coins (the American silver) and the specifically horrified posture (the arm raised, the head turned) that the specific iconographic debate interprets as either a reaction to the adjacent building or simply the dynamic pose that Bernini favored for the Americas figure to represent the New World's "terrified" relationship with the Old)): the four river gods are the primary sculptural achievement of the fountain, each carved by Bernini's workshop helpants (the Nile by Giacomo Antonio Fancelli, the Ganges by Claude Poussin, the Danube by Antonio Raggi, the Río de la Plata by Francesco Baratta) from Bernini's designs.
Fontana Dei Quattro Fiumi: tours & tickets
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The Quattro Fiumi obelisk (the ancient Egyptian obelisk of the Emperor Domitian's Circus of Maxentius, the specific obelisk that Innocent X had transported from its location on Via Appia to Piazza Navona to complete the Bernini fountain): the obelisk (4th century AD, not ancient Egyptian but Roman-produced in the Egyptian style for Domitian's cult installations) is the tallest element of the fountain (the total fountain height from the travertine base to the obelisk apex: 28m) and the specific Pamphilj family symbol that the dove (the Pamphilj family emblem, visible at the obelisk apex) crowns.
Q&A: Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi
Why does the Río de la Plata figure have its arm raised?
The raised arm of the Río de la Plata figure: the specific iconographic reading varies between the "terror of the unknown Americas" interpretation (the gesture expressing the terrified response of the New World to the Old) and the "dynamic Baroque pose" interpretation (the raised arm as a standard Bernini dynamic figure technique rather than a specific narrative gesture). The Borromini avoidance legend (the raised arm shielding the face from the Sant'Agnese façade) is the most entertaining interpretation but the chronologically impossible one. The most accurate current interpretation: the Río de la Plata arm expresses the specific Baroque rhetoric of dynamic bodily response, the same posed-motion vocabulary that Bernini uses throughout his mature work (the Ecstasy of Saint Teresa, the Apollo and Daphne) to suggest narrative moment rather than static representation.
Internal Links
- Bernini: La Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi nel Contesto
- Fotografare Piazza Navona: Alba e Tramonto
- Bernini Roma: Dal Ponte alla Fontana
- Piazza Navona in Inverno: La Fontana Senza Folla
- Barocco Romano: Bernini e Borromini nel Confronto
- Piazza Navona: I Segreti della Piazza
- Fontane di Roma: Quattro Fiumi e Barcaccia
