Rome has more fountains than any city on Earth — 2,000+ fountains including ~2,500 small drinking fountains (nasoni, "big noses"). The big ones are Baroque masterpieces by Bernini, Della Porta, and Nicola Salvi. The small ones save your life: nasoni deliver cold, fresh Appia/Peschiera aqueduct water 24/7, for free, from cast-iron spouts shaped like wolf heads. Cover the bottom spout with your finger — water shoots up through the top hole like a drinking fountain. Romans have been doing this for 2,000 years.
1. Trevi (Piazza di Trevi): THE fountain — Nicola Salvi, 1762. €3,000/day thrown in (collected for charity). Go at 7am for photos without 500 people. 2. Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi (Piazza Navona): Bernini's masterpiece — 4 river gods (Nile, Danube, Ganges, Río de la Plata) around an Egyptian obelisk. 3. Fontana della Barcaccia (Spanish Steps): Bernini's father — a sinking boat fountain at the base of the Steps. 4. Fontana delle Tartarughe (Piazza Mattei): Rome's most CHARMING fountain — 4 bronze boys push turtles into the upper basin. The turtles were added by Bernini 100 years later.
5. Fontanone del Gianicolo (Via Garibaldi): THE most dramatic — water cascades from the Acqua Paola aqueduct into a massive basin overlooking all of Rome. The opening shot of Sorrentino's La Grande Bellezza. 6-10: Fontana del Moro (Piazza Navona — Bernini triton). Fontana del Tritone (Piazza Barberini — Bernini's triton blowing water). Fontana delle Naiadi (Piazza della Repubblica — 4 nude nymphs, scandalous in 1901). Fontana dell'Acqua Felice (Piazza San Bernardo — Moses). Le Quattro Fontane (4 corner fountains, Via delle Quattro Fontane).
11-20: Meta Sudans footprint (near Colosseum — the ghost of a Roman fountain). Fontana delle Tiare (Vatican — papal crowns). Fontana della Pigna (Vatican courtyard — giant bronze pinecone). Fontana del Facchino (Via del Corso — one of Rome's "talking statues"). Fontana di Piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere (the oldest functioning fountain, possibly 8th century). Fontanella del Putto (Piazza dell'Aracoeli). Fontana di Piazza Farnese (twin granite bathtubs from Caracalla). Fontana del Giardino degli Aranci (Aventino). Fontana delle Api (Bernini — bees, Piazza Barberini). Ninfeo degli Horti Sallustiani (underground Roman nymphaeum, by appointment).
2,500 nasoni throughout Rome. Cast iron, 3 spouts, always running. Water: cold, clean, from the same aqueducts that supplied ancient Rome. The trick: Cover the bottom spout hole with your finger → water arcs up through the small hole on top → drink like a Roman. All about Italian tap water →. App: "I Nasoni di Roma" (maps every nasone).