Trevi Fountain

In drawing up the architectural design of the imposing structure, which once again affirmed the importance of water and springs for the face of Rome, Salvi composed a paraphrase of the most obvious motifs of 16th- and 17th-century architecture which, all told, does not manage to go beyond the limits of elegant academicism. For the figurative parts he turned to the most celebrated sculptors of the time: while Bracci composed the neo-Berninian central group, in which he turned into prose the motifs of the Fountain of the Four Rivers, his rival Filippo della Valle provided the allegorical statues for the niches, composed with classical restraint, and on the attic were lined up the Seasons by Ludovisi, Pincellotti, Queiroli and Corsini. Despite all these different contributions, the whole appears fairly unified.