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Writer's pictureGiulio D'Ercole

130. From Ramses II to A.S.Rome, the Pantheon fountain has some history.

Updated: Mar 24, 2020

By Giulio D'Ercole


An early morning photoshoot in #Rome to capture the beauty and the art of the #Eternalcity, when streets, squares, and iconic places are still semi-deserted. This is what #RomePhotoFunTours offers to beginners, amateurs and professional photographers visiting the Capital of #Italy. Booking our tours you will learn or fine-tune your photography skills through the most interesting and informative hands-on workshop.


A must stop in the very early morning is certainly #PiazzadellaRotonda, first and foremost because of the magnificent Pantheon, and secondly because of the beautiful fountain, portrayed in the photo here below, sitting right in the middle of the square.


The Fontana del Pantheon has a very long history indeed, a history that seems to go back and forth through centuries in a continuous evolution that sums up in itself past, present and future.

In fact, the fountain was commissioned, in 1575, by Pope Gregory XIII to Giacomo Della Porta, who designed it, even though it was Leonardo Sormani the artist that actually sculpted it out of marble.

Later on, in 1711, Pope Clement XI requested that the fountain be modified, and the job was given to Filippo Barigioni, who designed a new layout for it, including a different basin, made of stone, and the Macuteo obelisk, created during the period of Ramses II. The Egyptian six meters high artifact was placed in the center of the fountain, on a plinth with four dolphins decorating the base. These dolphins, though, were then removed and replaced with copies made by Luigi Amici, in 1886. The originals are visible today in the Museum of Rome.


Fontana del Pantheon's history though did not end back then but continued later on when it became the model to Francesco Robba for the Robba fountain, which stands at Town Square in Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, becoming the city's most recognizable symbols.


Even more interesting and modern is the very recent new restoration that fountain has gone through, since it was actually paid with 230.000 euros, in April 2018, by James Pallotta, the owner of the Roman football team AS Roma.




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