Discover Trevi Fountain

Oceanus

The Trevi Fountain is the largest Baroque fountain in Rome and the mostra terminale — the show-piece terminus — of the Acqua Vergine, which Turismo Roma describes as the only one of the ancient aqueducts in uninterrupted use. Roman technicians located its source in 19 BC, some thirteen kilometres from the city, and it served Rome for more than four hundred years.

It stands 26.3 metres high and 49.15 metres wide, filling one end of a small square at the meeting of three streets — Trevi is usually derived from trivium, the place where three roads meet. The building behind is a palace front with a triumphal arch at its centre; out of that centre the architecture dissolves, without a visible seam, into a cliff of carved travertine.

At the centre stands the titan Oceanus — not Neptune, as the fountain is often captioned — driving a chariot shaped like a shell, drawn by two hippocamps and two tritons, one horse wild and one calm. The reference work gives the theme as the taming of the waters, which is what an aqueduct is for.

Nicola Salvi designed it for Pope Clement XII after initially losing the 1730 competition to Alessandro Galilei; work began in 1732 and Giuseppe Pannini completed it in 1762.

Since 2 February 2026 there is a charge: EUR 2 for tourists and non-residents to enter the catino, the basin area nearest the monument, daily 09.00-22.00. Seeing the fountain from the rest of the piazza remains free.

A palace facade that turns into a cliff, with no join. The back of the Trevi is conventional architecture — a triumphal-arch centrepiece, columns, an attic storey — and the front is raw travertine reef. Salvi's whole move is to let the one dissolve into the other, so the building appears to be standing on a natural rock outcrop that happens to be gushing. It is 26.3 metres high and 49.15 metres wide: a fountain the size of a building, because it is a building.

The sculpture is an argument about water. The titan Oceanus springs from the central niche on a shell chariot pulled by two hippocamps and two cascading tritons, and the two sea-horses are deliberately unlike — one unruly, one calm. The reference work gives the theme as the taming of the waters, which is what an aqueduct is.

And the thing it is actually for is invisible. Turismo Roma describes the fountain as the mostra terminale — the show-piece terminus — of the Acqua Vergine, the only ancient aqueduct in continuous use. A mostra is a specific Roman building type: the place where a city announces that it has brought water a long way. Everything here is advertising for a pipe.

The design was not first choice. In 1730 Clement XII organised a contest in which Salvi initially lost to Alessandro Galilei — and, after an outcry in Rome at a Florentine winning, Salvi was awarded the commission anyway.

Thirty years, three popes, and an architect who lost the competition.

In 1730 Pope Clement XII organised a contest for the fountain. Nicola Salvi initially lost to Alessandro Galilei; after an outcry in Rome at the commission going to a Florentine, Salvi was awarded it anyway. Work began in 1732.

The job was harder than a fountain because it is also a building. The design puts a palace front and a triumphal arch behind a 49-metre spread of carved travertine reef, and the two have to meet without a visible seam — which means the masonry and the sculpture had to be planned as one piece of work rather than a structure with ornament applied.

Salvi did not live to finish it. The fountain was completed by Giuseppe Pannini in 1762, three decades after the first stone.

The engineering underneath is two thousand years older. The water comes from the Acqua Vergine, whose source Roman technicians located in 19 BC some thirteen kilometres from the city, and which served Rome for more than four hundred years before the medieval period and still arrives today. The eighteenth-century fountain is a frontage on a first-century BC utility.

Does the Trevi Fountain cost money now? Partly. Since 2 February 2026 tourists and non-residents pay EUR 2 to enter the catino, the basin area nearest the monument, daily 09.00-22.00. Seeing the fountain from the piazza is still free.

Who gets in free? Residents, children up to five, and people with disabilities and their companions. And everybody, outside 09.00-22.00.

Who built it? Nicola Salvi, for Pope Clement XII. He had initially lost the 1730 contest to Alessandro Galilei and was given the commission after an outcry in Rome. Work began in 1732 and Giuseppe Pannini completed it in 1762.

How big is it? 26.3 metres high and 49.15 metres wide.

Where does the water come from? The Acqua Vergine, whose source was located in 19 BC about thirteen kilometres from Rome — Turismo Roma calls it the only ancient aqueduct in uninterrupted use.

Who is the figure in the middle? Oceanus, on a shell chariot drawn by two hippocamps and two tritons. The theme is the taming of the waters.

What happens to the coins? About EUR 3,000 a day is thrown in and the money is given to Caritas for charity work.

When is it quietest? Before 09.00 — which is also when the basin is free.