Rome, Italy
Fontana di Trevi · fon-TAH-na dee TREH-vee
The end of a Roman water channel twenty-one kilometres long and two thousand years old, dressed up in 1762 as a cliff of white stone with a sea god riding out of it. About three thousand euros in coins go into the water every day.
Photo: Wilfredor, CC0, Wikimedia Commons
You hear it before you see it. The streets are narrow and the houses tall, and from somewhere ahead comes a steady roar, like heavy rain. Then the street opens and there is no room to stand back: one whole side of a small square is a wall of white stone with water pouring out of it.
The fountain was finished in 1762. In China the Qianlong emperor was in the twenty-seventh year of his reign; in Europe Mozart was six and already on tour.
Looking is free at every hour. Since February 2026 you pay to go down to the water's edge in the daytime.
| Part | Ticket |
|---|---|
| The square and the view from the rail | Free, always |
| The basin, at the water's edge | 2 euros from 9:00 to 22:00; free at night |
| The lovers' fountain | Free |
| The ancient channel in Via del Nazareno | Free; seen from the street |
| The underground remains (Vicus Caprarius) | Small ticket at the door |
The water is older than the fountain by eighteen centuries. In 19 BC Agrippa, the general who built the first Pantheon, brought it to Rome in a channel from springs east of the city. The channel runs almost all the way underground, which is why it was never cut when Rome was besieged. It has flowed, with repairs, ever since.
Where an aqueduct ended, the Romans built a show fountain. For centuries this one was a plain basin. In 1730 a pope held a competition for something grander, and a little-known Roman architect, Nicola Salvi, won. He worked on it for nineteen years and died with the sculpture unfinished.
The fountain has no back. It is the front of a palace, turned into a stage.
"The god in the middle is Neptune." He is Oceanus, the river that the Greeks believed ran round the whole earth. He holds no trident.
"Bernini made it." Bernini drew a plan in 1629 and turned the old basin to face this way. He had been dead for fifty years when the building began.
"The custom of the coin is ancient." It is first described by German visitors in the nineteenth century, and the three coins come from an American film of 1954.
"You may drink the water." The fountain now recycles its water. For a drink, use the small spout with two jets at the right-hand end.
"You can step in, as in the film." Wading is forbidden and the fine is several hundred euros. Since February 2026 even the paved area by the water needs a ticket in the daytime.
The stops start in the street behind you and end under the ground.
The name is usually explained as tre vie, three roads, which met at this spot. The square is small on purpose. The architect wanted the fountain to fill your eyes with no warning.
Walk to the left end and look along the front. The stone is travertine, the same pale limestone as the Colosseum, quarried at Tivoli. Where it meets the water it is carved as raw rock, with plants growing on it: a fig, a wild vine, an artichoke. More than thirty kinds have been counted.
The upper part is a triumphal arch, like those the emperors built, set against the wall of a palace. The palace windows look out between the columns.
At the top two winged figures hold the arms of the pope who paid for it. He raised the money by bringing back the public lottery, which earlier popes had banned as a sin.
The god stands in a chariot made of a shell. Two horses with wings and fishes' tails pull it, each led by a young sea-spirit. The horse on the left rears and fights. The one on the right walks quietly. They are the two moods of the sea.
In the niches to either side stand two women. The one on the left holds a horn spilling fruit: Abundance. The one on the right holds a cup from which a snake drinks: Health. Good water brings both.
Above the two women are two carved scenes. On the right a girl points to the ground while soldiers look on. On the left a man in armour studies a plan. He is Agrippa, ordering the channel to be built. The water was called the Virgin's water from the first.
A few streets north, in Via del Nazareno, a stretch of the ancient channel can be seen behind a railing, half buried by the rise of the city.
Stand with your back to the fountain and throw a coin with your right hand over your left shoulder. One coin means you will come back to Rome.
The basin is emptied of coins several times a week, early in the morning, with long brooms and a suction pump. The takings are about a million and a half euros a year. Since 2001 the city has given the money to a Catholic charity that runs kitchens and shelters for the poor of Rome.
Taking coins out is theft. For thirty-four years one man waded in before dawn with a magnet on a stick. He was stopped for good in 2002.
At the right-hand end, find a small basin with two thin jets that cross. It is called the lovers' fountain. A couple who drink from it together are said to stay faithful. This water is good to drink.
A hundred metres away, down a side street, a doorway leads to a cellar nine metres below the pavement. There are the brick walls of a Roman apartment block, a tank that held the Virgin's water, and a heap of eight hundred coins lost or hidden in the fifth century, when the city was being sacked.
| Year | Here | Elsewhere |
|---|---|---|
| 19 BC | Agrippa brings the water to Rome | Western Han (206 BC–AD 9) China (202 BC–AD 8); the poet Virgil dies in the same year |
| 1453 | A pope repairs the channel and builds a plain basin here | Ming China (1368–1644); Constantinople falls to the Ottomans |
| 1629 | Bernini is asked for a design | The last Ming emperor has just come to the throne; the Taj Mahal is begun three years later |
| 1732 | Work begins on Salvi's fountain | Qing China, the Yongzheng reign; George Washington is born |
| 1762 | The fountain is finished | The Qianlong reign; Rousseau publishes The Social Contract |
| 1960 | La Dolce Vita reaches the cinemas | Rome holds the Olympic Games in the same year |
| 2015 | Cleaned and relit after seventeen months of work | The year of the Paris climate agreement |
| 2026 | A ticket is charged at the water's edge | Three years after the Pantheon began to charge |
Films from official channels, played from YouTube. Nothing is loaded until you press play.
These are stories people tell about this place. They are legends, not history, and each one says where it comes from.
Agrippa's soldiers, hot and thirsty on the road, asked a young girl for water. She led them to a spring so clear and plentiful that the general had it measured on the spot. The water was named the Virgin's after her.
Source: Frontinus, On the Aqueducts of Rome (about AD 97), who gives it as the usual explanation
Throw one coin and you will return to Rome. Throw two and you will fall in love with an Italian. Throw three and you will marry.
Source: The first is recorded from the 1800s; the second and third from the film Three Coins in the Fountain, 1954
A barber whose shop faced the works mocked the fountain every day as it was built. One night the architect had a great stone vase set on the rail in front of his door, to shut out his view for ever. Romans call it the ace of cups, after the playing card.
Source: Roman popular tradition
When a young man of Rome went away to be a soldier, his girl brought him here on the last evening. They drank from a new cup, and she broke it, so that no one else could drink from it and he would not forget.
Source: Roman custom, recorded in the nineteenth century
Later, people who live here will be able to add the stories they grew up with, and say which of these they have heard.
Last checked 2026-11-12. The city of Rome's tourism site (turismoroma.it), notice on the entry fee as shown in November 2026.
Checked 2026-11-12
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