Fountain of 99 Spouts in L'Aquila

L'Aquila (AQ), Abruzzo, Italy

ARCHITECTURE: The fountain is an irregular trapezoidal figure, with the four corners placed in the directions of the four compass points, the left-side corner being North. The walls surrounding the fountain were built with red and white stones which were probably taken from nearby Genzano di Sassa and closely resemble the stones of the facade of St. Mary of Collemaggio, which was completed about the same time. The square stones are placed in 13 rows, alternating a red and a white stone, creating a kind of chessboard pattern.

All along the perimeter are 93 spouts jutting out of stone faces, placed at man's height, so that an average-height adult would be face-to-face with the stone figures, and about one metre from each other, separated by red stone square tiles (but 6 of these separating stones are white) all having a flower in relief but one, and along the right side, which is longer than the left, also by a further small rectangular tile with a diamond figure in relief; 6 more spouts possibly added later are situated in a lower position to the right corner of the entrance. In a 1578 renovation lower basins were added, to make it easier for women to wash their laundry. A Latin inscription with an eagle at the top is engraved in an ancient stone on the front wall of the fountain.

HISTORY: The inscription gives 1272 as the year when the fountain was probably completed, which date, if accepted, would mean possibly a 5-10 years work. The project was by Tancredi from Pentima (present day Corfinio, the ancient pre-Roman town where the name Italia was first used) and Valva was a monastery of the Cistercensian order, which means Tancredi may have been a monk himself.

In 1578 the lowest basins were added to allow women to do their washing there; the clothes were rubbed with soap and left on the fountain stairways under the sun in order to obtain a thoroughly white washing, and as a consequence the stairways were always slippery. In 1657, at the time of the great plague which killed four Aquilans out of ten, four big boilers were placed in the fountain courtyard to sterilize the clothes of the whole city. Under happier occasions, banquets used to be held in the honour of some very important persons.

The legend The name "99 spouts" started to be used only decades after the foundation, probably when Buccio da Ranallo wrote his poem in vernacular on the origin of the town; the inscription in the fountain does not mention the number 99, and the fountain was known originally as the Fontana della Rivera, Rivera being the quarter placed at lower altitude in the town, bordering the river Aterno.

Buccio wrote that the fountain was a kind of "memorial monument" for the founders, 99 castles (actually no more than 80) in the Aquilan Valley which joined to build the new town (the "urbs nova" of the inscription), each building a square with a church and a fountain surrounded by houses, and moving the population from the village of the original castle to the newly-founded city.

The monument is therefore closely connected to the origins of L'Aquila, and marked the importance of the area near the river for the newborn community, not only as a source of water but also because it allowed leather and wool crafts to flourish. The Rivera quarter had a spring of clear, perennial waters, which were channeled during the construction of the fountain. The actual location of the spring is lost and no more traceable, being the area all built up in the following centuries.

Another legend says that under a stone much bigger than the others the architect Tancredi was buried, after being executed because (different versions are given) either he refused to reveal the location of the spring, or in order that he would never reveal the location of the spring, or because, being asked whether he would be able to build another similar fountain, he said sure, he would.

How many are the 99 spouts? In 1742 Antonio Ludovico Antinori, who wrote a commentary to the Cronaca by Aquilan poet Buccio di Ranallo, wrote that the spouts were 93, all jutting out of as many stone faces (representing mythological figures, friars, male and female characters, satyres, warriors, animals) all different from one another. Actually the number 99 for the spouts (but not for the stone faces), can be obtained only adding 6 spouts jutting directly from a stone placed in a lower position to the right corner of the entrance, and it is not sure these 6 spouts existed in origin.

The mysteries of the fountain

• The templar cross in the 7th row of the central wall
• The inscription
• The church of San Vito
• The roof of San Vito