The Piazza Navona is a long, narrow square which is popular with tourists, despite (or maybe because of) a shortage of household-name landmarks. The Piazza has a north-south orientation and encloses three fountains of note. Some of the surrounding buildings are impressive, particularly a large church on its western side. But mostly people find it a pleasant place to spend some time on a warm afternoon or evening. Street performers have long since figured this out, and are present in force, mostly in the southern half of the square. We passed through the Piazza several times during our stay, as it was so close to our apartment, and in the afternoons we always noticed an art show in the northern portion of the square, with many easels displaying oil paintings for sale.

The piazza occupies the space once taken up by the first-Century A.D. Stadium of Domitian, a large venue (seating approximately 15-20,000 people) devoted to athletic competitions, particularly footraces. The piazza became the site of the city market in the late 15th Century. Two fountains were added at the north and south ends of the square in the late 16th Century, both initially sculpted by Giacomo della Porta. Both of these fountains were embellished in later years, with the southern fountain (called the Fontana del Moro) acquiring a statue of a Moor wrestling a dolphin in 1673 (sculpted by Gian Lorenzo Bernini), and the northern fountain (called the Fountain of Neptune) receiving a statue of Neptune in 1878 (the work of Antonio della Bitta).



At the center of the square is a fountain that would have to be considered the square's best-known landmark, Bernini's Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi (Fountain of the Four Rivers), which was installed in 1651. At the center of the fountain is a copy of a 1st Century Egyptian obelisk (originally ordered by the emperor Domitian), and surrounding the obelisk are baroque figures representing what were considered to be the world's four greatest rivers at the time: the Nile (Africa), the Ganges (India), the Danube (Europe) and the Río de la Plata (South America).




The Church on the west side of the square is the Church of Sant'Agnese in Agone, with a façade by Francesco Borromini (built in the period 1653-57). The church is devoted to St. Agnes of Rome, who is said to have been martyred (by beheading) on the site of the church in 304 A.D. Most of her bones are kept at another church devoted to her, but her skull is kept in this church. It's well documented that Borromini and Bernini didn't like each other, and there are stories that the Río de la Plata figure on Bernini's fountain is cowering in revulsion from the awfulness of the church's façade. But this is probably untrue, as the fountain predates Borromini's work on the church by two years.

After an exploration of the piazza and a little more walking around, Connie and I returned to the apartment to rest up for the next day, which was projected to be a busy one.