Turtles and dolphins off the beaten track

One of my favourite fountains in Rome for its design and the relative tranquillity of the square in which it is located is the Fontana delle Tartarughe (the Fountain of the Turtles). It lies between Largo Argentina, the site of the famous assassination of Julius Caesar in 44B.C., and the Jewish Quarter of Rome.

The name of the fountain is a later addition, considering that there were no turtles in the original fountain constructed in the 1580s. The two names associated with the first version of the fountain are Giacomo della Porta (the architect who completed Michelangelo’s dome on St. Peter’s Basilica) and Taddeo Landini.  The figures of 4 youths “held up” the basin of the fountain that was surmounted by four dolphins with water coming out of their mouths. At least, that was the idea. It is a pity that there was not enough water pressure to bring the water high enough and the dolphins were useless, aside from their appearance.

Around the 1650s, the famous Gian Lorenzo Bernini chose the addition of four turtles in place of the dolphins that had been removed due to their lack of use.

The fountain had originally been planned for the Jewish Ghetto in Piazza Giudia (now named Piazza delle Cinque Scole, in memory of the five synagogues or scole that used to be there). However, history tells us that pressure from the Mattei family brought about a change in its location and the “Mattei Fountain”, as it was once called, was relocated in the square that bears the same name as the fountain: Piazza Mattei.

An interesting curiosity is that the old Roman aqueduct, the Acqua Vergine, brought the water to here, as it would do later on for a more famous sight: the Trevi Fountain. Another curiosity is that one of the original turtles was stolen in 1979 and bronze copies replaced it, along with the other three turtles. Sometimes, people’s appreciation of art goes just too far!

A final footnote for my American friends: As you cannot travel to Europe now, you could look at one of the four copies of this fountain in the USA. They are located in Rhode Island, Michigan, Sarasota (Florida) and San Francisco.

Written by: Robert Coghlan

Photo by: Robert Coghlan