Palazzo Ossoli Fountain

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Palazzo Ossoli Fountain
Piazza Capodiferro
Rome, April 2013

“This fountain was commissioned by the Spada family. It is in the Regola district, against the front of Palazzo Spada, which was designed by Francesco Borromini. The fountain originally a figure of a woman with Acqua Paola water emanating from her breasts. The Roman sarcophagus is a substitute: the original is in the Vatican. Borromini also designed the fountain. A figure of a lion later replaced the figure of the woman. The lion's head spouts water into the basin, and two other lion's heads spout water into the street-level pool below. An arch inside the brick wall frames the fountain. In 1700 the fountain became inactive, and the lion's heads were removed and the fountain abandoned. It was later restored by an engineer, Adolfo Pernier, using the original elements. In 1998 the present statue was made by Giuseppe Ducrot from Carrara marble. The model for the statue was a 17th-century work that depicted a nymph whose nipples were water springs.” (Marvin Pulvers, Roman Fountains)