Fontana delle Tartarughe (the Turtle Fountain, in Piazza Mattei, the small piazza in the Sant'Angelo neighborhood adjacent to the Jewish Ghetto, 200m from Via Arenula and 300m from the Largo di Torre Argentina): the 1588 bronze fountain commissioned by the Mattei family from Giacomo della Porta (the architect-designer) and Taddeo Landini (the sculptor) as the specific urbanistic marker of the Mattei family's claim on Piazza Mattei territory (the piazza surrounded by three Mattei family palaces, the Palazzo Mattei di Giove, the Palazzo Mattei di Paganica, and the Palazzo Mattei Caetani, whose triple enclosure of the piazza produced the specific visual dominance that the fountain was commissioned to complete).
The gambling legend: the specific Fontana delle Tartarughe origin legend (the story that Muzio Mattei commissioned the fountain in a single night, building the fountain from 10:00pm to 7:00am, to demonstrate to his future father-in-law that he wasn't ruined by the gambling debt that had caused the father-in-law to withdraw his daughter's hand the previous day): the legend (universally told in Rome travel writing since the 18th century) is chronologically impossible (the Giacomo della Porta design and Taddeo Landini casting required months of preparation), culturally specific (the specific Roman gambling-and-honor narrative that the Mattei family's political position in the late 16th century makes plausible as a legend even if not as a fact), and iconographically irrelevant (the fountain turtles were added at a later date, either by Bernini in the 17th century or by an anonymous sculptor in the 1658 restoration, not by the original 1588 commission), but the legend has generated more visitor attention for the Fontana delle Tartarughe than any art-historical description could achieve.
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Fontana delle Tartarughe: Design, Turtles, and Visit
The Fountain Design
Fontana delle Tartarughe design (the specific 1588 composition, the four bronze youth figures (the epheboi) standing on dolphin heads at the basin rim, each youth's raised hand touching the upper basin edge, and each figure's weight supported by the upturned dolphin below): the specific Taddeo Landini sculpture quality (the four youth figures, each slightly different in pose and gesture, represent the most accomplished single group of bronze figures in any Renaissance fountain in Rome, more immediately appealing than the more famous Bernini fountains in scale and in the specific human warmth of the young male figures): the turtles (the four bronze turtles perched on the upper basin rim between the youth figures, the specific later addition (Bernini or the 1658 restoration) whose scale (the small, naturalistically rendered turtles) and iconographic function (the upper basin to which the youths' hands reach) gives the fountain its name and its specific visual charm).
Fontana Delle Tartarughe: tours & tickets
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See availability & prices →Compare tours on Viator →We may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you.Piazza Mattei Visit
Piazza Mattei visit (the small piazza with the fountain and the three Mattei family palazzo facades, one of the most completely preserved single-family Renaissance urban ensembles in Rome): the Palazzo Mattei di Giove (the largest of the three, now the Istituto Luigi Sturzo research library, whose cortile (the internal courtyard) with the ancient sculpture fragments can be visited during library hours), and the specific piazza atmosphere (Piazza Mattei is one of the few small piazze in the Rome historic center that remains primarily residential rather than commercial, the absence of restaurants, bars, and souvenir shops on the piazza perimeter preserves the specific 16th-century Mattei family enclosure that the fountain was built to complete).
Q&A: Fontana delle Tartarughe
Did Bernini really add the turtles to the Fontana delle Tartarughe?
Almost certainly not, the Bernini attribution (the specific claim that Bernini added the four turtles during the 1658 restoration commissioned by Pope Alexander VII) is one of the most commonly repeated incorrect art-historical attributions in Rome: the 1658 restoration documents (examined by the art historian Valentino Martinelli in the 1960s) reference the repair of the fountain but don't mention the addition of new sculptural elements, and the stylistic analysis of the turtles (the naturalistic treatment, the specific scale relationship to the youths, and the compositional integration) suggests an early rather than mid-17th century date. The most probable scenario: the turtles were part of the original 1588 commission but weren't installed in the first fountain version (the fountain was altered at some point before the 1658 restoration to add the upper basin and the turtles). The Bernini legend, like the gambling legend, is more interesting than the historical truth and harder to dislodge from the Rome travel writing tradition.
Internal Links
- Fontane di Roma: Le Tartarughe nel Contesto
- Fotografare la Fontana delle Tartarughe: L'Alba nel Ghetto
- Ghetto Ebraico in Inverno: La Fontana Senza Folla
- Sant'Angelo: L'Acqua Madre e le Tartarughe
- Roma Nascosta: Piazza Mattei
- Fontane Rinascimentali Roma: Tartarughe e Barcaccia
- Come Arrivare a Piazza Mattei: 10 Minuti da Campo de' Fiori
