Description
The Triton Fountain is Gian Lorenzo Bernini's fountain in the middle of Piazza Barberini: a muscular sea god who sits on a shell and blows a jet of water toward the sky. He carved it in travertine in 1642–1643 for Pope Urban VIII Barberini, whose palace overlooks the square.
Four open-mouthed dolphins rise from the low basin, their intertwined tails holding up a large open shell. Above, the triton throws back his head and blows into a conch, a trumpet-shaped shell he holds with both arms; between the dolphins' tails peek out the pope's coats of arms with the family bees.
What was new was the empty space under the group: no pillar, the triton rests only on the dolphins' tails. Because of the hiss of the jet, people called it the “Sounding Triton”. In 1932 a restoration removed about 12 centimeters of encrustation, and the fountain looked so different that a press campaign claimed it had been replaced by a copy.
Four open-mouthed dolphins rise from the low basin, their intertwined tails holding up a large open shell. Above, the triton throws back his head and blows into a conch, a trumpet-shaped shell he holds with both arms; between the dolphins' tails peek out the pope's coats of arms with the family bees.
What was new was the empty space under the group: no pillar, the triton rests only on the dolphins' tails. Because of the hiss of the jet, people called it the “Sounding Triton”. In 1932 a restoration removed about 12 centimeters of encrustation, and the fountain looked so different that a press campaign claimed it had been replaced by a copy.