From Wikipedia: "In the last decade of his pontificate, Pope Pius IX ordered and financed the reconstruction of the ancient Aqua Marcia aqueduct, badly damaged by the Goths in the sixth century and remained unused ever since. The management of the new aqueduct was entrusted, in 1868, to the company "Acqua Pia Antica Marcia SpA" (whose brand can still be found on some fountains and manholes), which remained for a long time one of the main suppliers of water supply in the city.
The work was to end in a large "exhibition" (as other pontiffs had done for the aqueducts restored during their reign), which was built in a position about 80 meters closer to the Termini station than it is currently located the fountain, roughly where today is the monument to the fallen of Dogali, on via Luigi Einaudi. It was a simple large circular pool, with the edge consisting of a composition of rocks from which a large number of jets of water turned towards the center. Here the composition was completed by five vertical water jets, of which the central one is much higher than the others. The Pope inaugurated it on 10 September 1870, 10 days before thebreccia of Porta Pia and the end of its temporal reign.
Some years later, in 1888, taking advantage of an urban layout of the area which required the Municipality to move the fountain a few meters, the opportunity was taken to rebuild it from scratch, completely changing its appearance. The architect Alessandro Guerrieri's project involved 3 concentric circular cups at different heights placed on an octagonal base with the sides alternately straight and concave; on the straight sides four semi-circular basins open and the whole structure is immersed in a large shallow pool. The first attempt (on the occasion of the visit to Rome of Emperor William II of Germany) to place four crouched plaster lions, placed in the four semicircular basins on the right sides of the octagon, as an ornament of the entire complex, was unsuccessful, and the project was abandoned.
The next project, the work of the Palermo sculptor Mario Rutelli, completed and inaugurated in 1901, consisted of four nude female bronze figures (placed in place of the lions in the special protruding basins), depicting the naiads: the Nymph of the Lakes, recognizable by the swan that holds with it, the Nymph of the Rivers, lying on an aquatic monster, the Nymph of the Underground Waters, lying on top of a dragon, and the Nymph of the Oceans, riding a horse symbol of the sea. A large jet of water fell onto the statues coming from the first internal basin, while the central basin kept the original fountain project, with a large series of jets directed inwards, in addition to the five central ones. The entire complex was surrounded by a railing.
The particularly sensual and lascivious position of the statues, and the luster of the water-laden bodies, turned out to be an immoral and indecent spectacle for the conservative wing of the papal faith that was still alive in the city, and of which the Osservatore Romano, the newspaper of the Vatican; although initially a wooden fence had been maintained to prevent the sight of the monument (while waiting for the Municipality to take a position on the protests), the comings and goings of young people who stood around the railing to admire the statues among the disconnected tables only added to the sense of scandal that the fountain aroused. The controversy grew, in the name of modesty and respectability, and remained for a while, but the Municipality embraced the progressive theses and, in addition to not removing the Naiads, as the more Puritan current would have liked, on 10 February 1901 he let the Romans, following a half-popular uprising, demolished the fence.
Still at Rutelli the decoration for the central group of the fountain was commissioned. The sculptor's creation turned out to be quite bizarre: three tritons, a dolphin and a large octopus, apparently clinging to one another in a fight. When, in 1911, the first model was placed on top of the fountain, it provoked sarcastic reactions, and the group was renamed "the mixed fry of Termini". It was soon removed, and the artist was asked to sculpt another, more sober one. In 1912, finally, the fountain assumed the definitive aspect that it still maintains, with the arrangement, in the center, of the Glauco group, a naked male figure that grabs a dolphin, symbolizing the domination of man over natural force, from whose mouth the central jet comes out. The complete work was again inaugurated in 1914.
The last restoration and cleaning intervention dates back to 1988." (
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