Its elaborate Baroque facade now sparkles in the sun, scaffold-free: Rome’s Trevi Fountain gushes its emerald waters once again after a clean-up funded by Italian fashion house Fendi.
Crowds of frustrated tourists had spent months peeking at bits of the monument from a special walkway put in over the fountain while repairs were carried out to the tune of more than 2 million euros (US$2.2 million).
The basin was drained 16 months ago, but the most determined visitors could still be seen slinging coins over their shoulders — a tradition which is said to ensure a return to Rome — in the hope of getting them into a small substitute pool.
Photo: AFP
Now the fountain, made famous by a scene in Federico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita in which Anita Ekberg wades through its pristine waters, makes the surrounding buildings in Rome’s historic center look decidedly shabby.
German fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld — Fendi’s creative director — was expected at the scene yesterday for the moment the taps were turned back on at 5pm.
Water would once more cascade from the base of the fountain’s sea-god scene to the delight of snap-happy tourists as the Italian house’s designer Silvia Venturini Fendi and chief executive Pietro Beccari look on.
The nearly 300-year-old monument, visited by millions of tourists every year, hit the headlines in 2012 after bits of its elaborate cornice began falling off following a particularly harsh winter.
Emergency repairs cost 320,000 euros, and a survey of the monument found that more critical work was needed, prompting a cash-strapped city hall to appeal to large companies and donors for funding. Fendi answered the call.
The company, founded as a leather goods business in Rome in the 1920s and now part of French luxury giant LVMH, signed up to a deal that allows it to hang a plaque near the monument for four years.
It also funded the restoration of the Quattro Fontane — the late Renaissance fountains that grace each corner of a busy intersection in the capital.
It was not the only fashion house to leap to the aid of the eternal city’s ailing monuments: luxury jeweler Bulgari has begun cleaning up the city’s famous Spanish Steps, while shoemaker Tod’s is financing works at the Colosseum.
The Trevi Fountain, commissioned by pope Clement XII in 1730, is the end point of one of the aqueducts that supplied ancient Rome with water and was last restored 23 years ago.
The Acqua Vergine runs for a total of 20km and ends up in the fountain, where tourists can drink it from a special tap tucked away at one side of the monument.
Legend has it the water source was discovered in 19 BC by thirsty Roman soldiers guided to the site by a young virgin — hence the name, Virgin Waters.
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