Back Story of Wall Fountains

Himself a highly educated man, Pope Nicholas V headed the Roman Catholic Church from 1397 till 1455 and was responsible for the translation of hundreds of ancient documents from their original Greek into Latin. He undertook the embellishment of Rome to make it into the model seat of the Christian world. In 1453 the Pope instigated the repairing of the Aqua Vergine, an ancient Roman aqueduct which had carried clean drinking water into the city from eight miles backyard fountains away. Building a mostra, a grandiose celebratory fountain built by ancient Romans to memorialize the arrival point of an aqueduct, was a tradition revived by Nicholas V. The architect Leon Battista Alberti was directed by the Pope to construct a wall fountain where we now find the Trevi Fountain. The water which eventually furnished the Trevi Fountain as well as the acclaimed baroque fountains in the Piazza del Popolo and Piazza Navona came from the modified aqueduct which he had renovated.