Fountain of the Tritons, Baroque fountain on Piazza Bocca della Verità, Rome, Italy.
The Fountain of the Tritons is a Baroque sculpture made of travertine on Piazza Bocca della Verità, featuring two kneeling triton figures holding a seashell basin above an octagonal pool. The structure blends elegant carved figures with geometric forms typical of early 18th-century Baroque design.
Pope Clement XI Albani commissioned the fountain as a monument to his own memory; the foundation stone was laid on 11 August 1717, and Carlo Francesco Bizzaccheri completed it in 1715 during works to rearrange the square before Santa Maria in Cosmedin. A secondary branch of the Acqua Felice supplied the water. Contemporaries criticised the choice of a sparsely inhabited, uneven site exposed to Tiber floods.
The fountain displays an eight-pointed star representing Pope Clement XI's coat of arms, with water flowing from the Albani family heraldic symbols. These details reflect the close ties between the Church and nobility that shaped 18th-century Rome.
The fountain stands on Piazza Bocca della Verità, in front of the basilica of Santa Maria in Cosmedin, south of the Tiber Island, not near the Colosseum. It sits among the Arch of Janus, the Temple of Hercules Victor and the Temple of Portunus. The water supply is limited, so the jets can be weak.
Four mascarons once poured water into the main basin; they were removed in the 19th century, probably because the supply was too scarce to keep them running. The fountain itself stayed dry for a long time before water was restored, and it was cleaned in 1994–1995 and again in 2010.
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