The best places I have been in Rome (part 5): Piazza Navona

marco.matthias (46)in #travel • 7 years ago

Hi everyone,

we leave Campo de´Fiori behind us and target one of the most famous places in Rome: Piazza Navona!

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The shape of the Piazza is a long "D" - his might not be important if we were not in Rome. But actually today Rome is built on the ruins of ancient Rome, so the shape of a square might tell you something about its history: The Piazza Navona which we know today has been build from the Pope Family Pamphili. But in ancient Rome it was the stadium of the emperor Domiziano.

In ancient Rome a long "D" shape stands always for a stadium. In a stadium the Romans organized athletic games like the olympic games of these days. You can see the ancient stadium outside of the curved side - you can also visit the ruins 5-10 meters under the today street-level of the place.

In ancient Rome you would have hat also a short "D" shaped building which was a theater (see Post nr. 2) or a very long "D" shape which was a circus (like Circo Massimo) where they organized horse races.

Me with my girlfriend @denise.kluch. The obelisk behind us plays an important role in the second movie of Dan Brown´s Illuminati. Foto: @marco.matthias

Today the squares a lot of important buildings (like the Brasil Embassy) some extraordinary church and of course the fountain of the 4 rivers in the center of the place.

The fountain of the 4 rivers

This fountain is wonderful! Especially by night!! And it is also an example of a extreme high level of architecture - almost nobody today would build a fountain like this!!!

It is called the fountain of the 4 rivers, because every river should have represented one continent. Why only 4 and not 5? Because they haven´t had discovered Australia jet! :)

You will recognize the rivers through the faces of the lying man statues (a lying man represents always a river) and through the animals and the vegetation. You will find the Danub, the Rio della Plata, the Gange and the Nil. For further information visit Wikipedia or get some book ... I genuinely believe, that you might spend a year reading books just about this fountain!

Here are some pics I shot

Foto: @marco.matthias

A curiosity

At the time Bernini made this fountain he did not know where the source of the Nil was. The man-statues of a river always have the face of the mans of the local area around the river source. Bernini did not know, how the face of the people looked like so he invented a towel covering the face of the statue. You can see this very good in the pictures above (statue on the right side).

We will now go to the Pantheon, which will be part nr 6 of our tour through Rome!

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