Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi
The Four Rivers Fountain ( Italian: Fontana dei Quattro Rivers ) was commissioned by Pope Innocent X commissioned and built by Gian Lorenzo Bernini in the years 1648-51 in the center of Piazza Navona in Rome. He is regarded as a masterpiece of High Baroque sculpture.
Four male figures symbolize each standing for one of the four continents then known rivers Danube, Ganges, Nile and Río de la Plata. The exact assignment can be seen on the animals and plants. The fountain represents not only the known world, but also the claim to power of the Pope over the earth. In the middle of the mighty obelisk that comes from the Isis Temple of Domitian ( Iseum Campense ), a dove, the emblem of the Pamphili rises. On the obelisk pays homage to Domitian is engraved. This is one of the last inscriptions in Hieroglpyhenschrift.
2007-2008 the wells of an extensive renovation was subjected.
Legends
One of the guides loved to tell stories is the legend of the two contending builder. The church next to the fountain, S. Agnese in Agnone the former Bernini 's pupil and later rival Francesco Borromini, Bernini had provoked derision: he had about the Nile god veiled head, and given the personification of the Rio de la Plata, a defensively raised hand. Borromini should then have asked the statue of Saint Agnes of Rome to the right bell tower, to prove how firmly stand his building, and had them contemptuously past look at the well. However, the view on the years refutes this interpretation: The fountain was already finished when the contract was signed for the Church and initially to Girolamo Rainaldi, Borromini did not come until 1653 for the course. The statue again missing on old engravings and was apparently attached until long after Borromini's death. More likely is the interpretation that the veiled head of the Nile symbolizes its then unknown source.