Baroque Rome: The Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, and Bernini's Waters
A journey through Rome's greatest architectural wonders, unreinforced concrete domes, and theatrical fountains
Rome · 7 stops · 11 min audio · Generated
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1. Piazza Navona & The Fountain of the Four Rivers
Piazza Navona, 00186 Roma
Step onto the smooth travertine cobblestones of Piazza Navona and pause beside the thunderous cascade of Gian Lorenzo Bernini's Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi, the Fountain of the Four Rivers. Look down the elongated oval expanse of the square: you are standing directly on the arena floor of the Stadium of Emperor Domitian, built in eighty-six AD for athletic games, whose ancient contours the surrounding Baroque palazzi still preserve to this day.
Look at the four colossal river gods carved into the travertine rocks beneath the towering Egyptian obelisk. They represent the four great rivers of the known continents under papal influence: the Danube for Europe, the Nile for Africa with its head veiled because its source was unknown, the Ganges for Asia holding an oar, and the Río de la Plata for the Americas with coins symbolizing New World wealth.
A delicious Roman legend claims Bernini sculpted the Rio de la Plata throwing up his hand in horror as if fearing the church of Sant'Agnese in Agone, designed by his bitter rival Francesco Borromini, would collapse on him! While Borromini actually designed the facade after the fountain was finished, the bitter feud between the two artistic giants defined Rome's golden age.
Walk east through the narrow alleyways toward the ancient portico of the Pantheon.
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2. The Pantheon: The Unbroken Dome of the Gods
Piazza della Rotonda, 00186 Roma
Stand in the Piazza della Rotonda right before the sixteen colossal granite monolithic columns of the Pantheon's portico. Each column was quarried in Egypt and transported across the Mediterranean and up the Tiber River. Completed around one hundred and twenty-five AD under Emperor Hadrian, this temple dedicated to all gods is the best-preserved architectural masterpiece of the ancient world.
Step through the monumental bronze doors and look up into the cavernous rotunda: you are standing beneath the largest unreinforced concrete dome in human history, spanning forty-three point three meters in diameter. The interior is a perfect sphere: the height from the marble floor to the central oculus is exactly equal to its diameter.
Gaze up at the nine-meter-wide open oculus in the crown of the dome: it is the building's only light source. When it rains in Rome, rain pours straight through the open hole into the temple, draining silently through twenty-two tiny holes drilled into the convex marble floor beneath your shoes.
In the second chapel to the right rests the tomb of Renaissance master Raphael, who asked to be buried beneath this eternal dome. Exit east toward the church of Sant'Ignazio.
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3. Sant'Ignazio & Pozzo's Illusion: The Fake Dome
Via del Caravita 8a, 00186 Roma
Step into the nave of the Church of Sant'Ignazio di Loyola and walk until you find a circular marble disc set into the floor of the central aisle. Stand directly on this yellow marble disc and look straight up: the flat ceiling above you appears to dissolve into a soaring, hundred-foot marble colonnade opening into the heavens, where Saint Ignatius is received into paradise surrounded by floating angels!
Jesuit painter and mathematician Andrea Pozzo created this masterpiece of trompe-l'œil perspective between sixteen eighty-five and sixteen ninety-four. Every pillar, arch, and soaring cloud is an optical illusion painted onto a flat plaster ceiling, designed to appear perfectly three-dimensional only when viewed from this single exact stone.
Walk fifty feet further toward the altar and look up at the dark dome above the transept. It looks like a magnificent stone cupola with coffered ribs. But take several steps to the side: the dome warps and distorts! There is actually no dome at all: when funds ran out in sixteen eighty-five, Pozzo painted a perspective illusion of a dome onto a flat seventeen-meter canvas stretched across the ceiling.
Check your reflection in the large tilted floor mirror before heading east toward the roar of the Trevi Fountain.
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4. Trevi Fountain: The Theatrical Oceanus and Coin Legend
Piazza di Trevi, 00187 Roma
Turn the corner of the narrow alley and pause as the thunder of crashing water fills the plaza. Step down the curved travertine steps of the Trevi Fountain and gaze upon Nicola Salvi's colossal masterpiece, stretching twenty meters wide across the facade of the Palazzo Poli. In the center, Oceanus, god of all waters, rides a shell-shaped chariot pulled by two winged sea horses guided by tritons.
Look at the two horses: one is wild and rearing furiously, representing the violent tempest of the sea, while the other is calm and obedient, symbolizing the peaceful ocean. The fountain is fed by the Acqua Vergine, an ancient Roman aqueduct functioning continuously since nineteen BC, when thirsty Roman soldiers were guided to a pure spring by a young maiden, an event depicted in the bas-relief above.
Stand with your back to the pool and toss a coin with your right hand over your left shoulder into the water: Roman legend guarantees that one coin ensures your return to Rome, a second brings a new romance, and a third promises marriage. Every day, over three thousand euros in coins are swept from the basin and donated to the Catholic charity Caritas to feed Rome's poor.
Follow the cobbled streets north toward the Spanish Steps.
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5. Spanish Steps & Fontana della Barcaccia: The Sinking Boat
Piazza di Spagna, 00187 Roma
Stand in the center of Piazza di Spagna right beside the sunken travertine basin of the Fontana della Barcaccia, the Fountain of the Ugly Boat. Sculpted in sixteen twenty-nine by Pietro Bernini with the help of his brilliant son Gian Lorenzo, the fountain depicts a leaking, half-sunken barge overflowing with fresh water.
Why did Bernini sculpt a sunken boat? In fifteen ninety-eight, a historic flood of the Tiber River submerged Rome beneath twenty feet of muddy water. When the floodwaters receded, an actual wooden cargo boat was found stranded right here in the center of this piazza. Because water pressure from the Acqua Vergine aqueduct was very low at this spot, Bernini sank the fountain below street level so water could gently spill over the gunwales.
Gaze up at the magnificent grand sweep of the Spanish Steps: one hundred and thirty-five gleaming travertine steps designed by Francesco de Sanctis in seventeen twenty-five to connect the Spanish Embassy below with the French church of Trinità dei Monti above. English Romantic poets John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelley lived in the house right beside the steps.
Walk north along the luxury boutiques of Via del Babuino toward Piazza del Popolo.
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6. Piazza del Popolo & Caravaggio's Shadows
Piazza del Popolo, 00187 Roma
Step into the enormous oval expanse of Piazza del Popolo, the historic northern gateway to Rome where travelers arriving along the Via Flaminia first entered the Eternal City. In the center rises the towering red granite Flaminio Obelisk, brought from Heliopolis in Egypt by Emperor Augustus in ten BC and re-erected here in fifteen eighty-nine by Pope Sixtus the Fifth.
Look south at the striking pair of twin Baroque churches: Santa Maria dei Miracoli and Santa Maria in Montesanto. Architect Carlo Rainaldi designed them to frame the three radiating streets of the Il Tridente avenue network, using clever optical illusions to make their different-sized plots look perfectly identical from the piazza.
Walk into the Church of Santa Maria del Popolo beside the northern gate and step into the Cerasi Chapel: in the dim chapel light hang two raw, revolutionary masterpieces by Caravaggio, painted in sixteen zero one: The Crucifixion of Saint Peter and The Conversion of Saint Paul. Notice the dirt on the executioners' feet and the dramatic chiaroscuro that shocked seventeenth-century churchmen.
Now climb the winding stone ramp behind the eastern fountains toward the Pincio Terrace.
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7. Pincio Terrace: The Sunset over the Eternal City
Viale Gabriele D'Annunzio, 00187 Roma
Conclude your journey at the balustrade of the Pincio Terrace, resting your elbows on the cool stone railing as the evening breeze whispers through the umbrella pines. Look out across the breathtaking panorama of the Eternal City: below you lies Piazza del Popolo, and directly in line across the Tiber River rises the majestic, glowing dome of Saint Peter's Basilica against the sunset sky.
The Pincio Hill was known in antiquity as the Collis Hortulorum, or Hill of Gardens, famous for the luxurious terraced villas of Roman generals like Lucullus. Neoclassical architect Giuseppe Valadier designed this panoramic public promenade in eighteen twenty-two, linking the city gates with the vast gardens of the Villa Borghese.
Along the tree-lined gravel walkways behind you stand over two hundred marble busts of great Italian figures: poets, scientists, statesmen, and artists from Dante Alighieri to Leonardo da Vinci. Roman lovers have gathered on this terrace for two centuries to watch the evening sun turn the marble domes and ancient bell towers into liquid gold.
Listen to the distant church bells echoing across the seven hills. You have walked through three thousand years of triumphs, illusions, and timeless beauty in the heart of Rome.