Triton Fountain (1643). Travertine. 500. The Fontana del Tritone, created by the Baroque sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini in 1643, is often portrayed in art as a striking example of Rome’s dynamic Baroque style, blending mythological themes with architectural grandeur. Located in Piazza Barberini, the fountain features Triton, the sea god, emerging from a giant clam shell and blowing a conch, symbolizing the power of the sea. Artworks depicting the Fontana del Tritone often focus on its dramatic energy and movement, emphasizing Bernini’s skill in transforming marble into flowing, lifelike forms. In many visual representations, the fountain serves as a testament to the grandeur of the Barberini family, who commissioned the work, and highlights Rome’s artistic flourishing during the 17th century. The fountain’s combination of mythology, natural forms, and intricate craftsmanship remains a celebrated motif in depictions of Baroque Rome. At its centre rises a larger than lifesize muscular Triton, a minor sea god of ancient Greco-Roman legend, depicted as a merman kneeling on the sum of four dolphin tailfins. His head is thrown back and his arms raise a conch to his lips; from it a jet of water spurts, formerly rising dramatically higher than it does today. The fountain has a base of four dolphins that entwine the papal tiara with crossed keys and the heraldic Barberini bees in their scaly tails. The Tritone, the first of Bernini's free-standing urban fountains, was erected to provide water from the Acqua Felice aqueduct which Urban had restored, in a dramatic celebration. It was Bernini's last major commission from his great patron who died in 1644. At the Triton Fountain, Urban and Bernini brought the idea of a sculptural fountain, familiar from villa gardens, decisively to a public urban setting for the first time; previous public fountains in the city of Rome had been passive basins for the reception of public water. Bernini has represented the triton to illustrate the triumphant passage from Ovid's Metamorphoses book I, evoking godlike control over the waters and describing the draining away of the Universal Deluge. The passage that Urban set Bernini to illustrate, was well known to all literate Roman contemporaries: Already Triton, at his call, appears Above the waves; a Tyrian robe he wears; And in his hand a crooked trumpet bears. The sovereign bids him peaceful sounds inspire, And give the waves the signal to retire. His writhen shell he takes; whose narrow vent Grows by degrees into a large extent, Then gives it breath; the blast with doubling sound, Runs the wide circuit of the world around: The sun first heard it, in his early east, And met the rattling echoes in the west. The waters, list'ning to the trumpet's roar, Obey the summons, and forsake the shore. Two finished terracotta bozzetti at the Detroit Institute of Arts, securely attributed to Bernini, reflect his exploration of the fountain's themes of the intertwined upended dolphins and the muscular, scaly-tailed Triton. The Triton Fountain is one of those evoked in Ottorino Respighi's Fontane di Roma.