Mrs. Charles MacVeagh

“ Romans of the eighteenth century often saw Alfieri, the tragic dramatist, crouched beside the fountain, lost in a day-dream evoked by the tumult and beauty of the water; and it is recorded that the day after Michelangelo's death there was found in his house no wine whatever, but five jars of water, presumably the Trevi, as it was the only pure drinkable water in Rome. The Trevi fountain has become a feature in the city's life. It is the chief fountain of the one water which modern Rome inherits directly from her great past. ”

“ Looking up, he sees a great ledge of broken rock, over which the water pours in many streams and waterfalls, disappearing and reappearing among the rocks like a veritable mountain torrent. The main stream descends in a series of three quite lovely cascades, their semicircular-shaped basins being prototypes of the great lower basin, into which all eventually flow. Their edges are smooth, as if they had been water-worn, and the force of the water feeding them is so great that it boils and roars among masses of broken rock as it does in a natural waterfall. ”

“ The Roman people, whose love for their own antiquities was constantly growing, showed such indignation when the Pope's project became known that Urban was actually obliged to abandon his scheme, and it was not until eleven pontificates after his time that the work on the new fountain was really begun. ”