Small fountain

This small, square-shaped fountain belongs to the Fontes salientes type, where the water, channelled through the marble block by means of a central pipe, gushed in the upper basin – here of a rather complex shape and sufficiently preserved – and then flowed on each side over the central ladder, thus creating a pleasant visual and acoustic effect.

Our exemplar possesses the peculiar and exceptional characteristic of being still furnished with the small parapet concealing the drain channel through which the water in excess ran out.

From an iconographic point of view, the fountain appears to be particularly elaborate, having all its four sides centrally decorated by a ladder made of four large steps; the ladders are framed by a pair of moulded panels containing the image of a cetacean in relief on the two opposite sides and, on the remaining prospects, a standing male figure within a small niche, holding a club in the right hand and an attribute in the left.

Above each of the figured panel, a further square panel is filled with a ribboned crown in relief which has the bands symmetrically arranged at either side of the wreath. At the top of each ladder is carved a shell valve, devoid of the usual spout hole for the water’s downflow from the upper basin.

The four corners were originally all decorated with a head, probably portraying Ocean (or some river god), of which only one is preserved; this has a pierced mouth to let the water flow and is placed above a labrum on its shaft, simulating a small spurting fountain.

The square, virtually intact parapet surrounding the whole of the inner block has the four sides carved with various marine images in relief: seals, dolphins, sea-griffins, mermaids.

The figured decoration is thus in keeping with the water theme, a theme which is also to be found in the iconographic apparatus of large scale fountains and which was largely employed in the Roman world. Like the other piece in this same collection, also this fountain was originally placed on a platform at the centre of a wide rectangular basin or of an impluvium, where the falling rain was collected. In addiction, it represents another example of the habit of miniaturizing ladder-type monumental fountains and nymphaea that can be found in several Roman cities.

Our fountain could be dated within the II century AD.