The elephant fountain

The elephantfountain, which can be found on the Piazza della Minerva, is another famous fountain of Bernini. This monument, which was the result of long talking between pope alexander VII and this bernini. This masterpiece was built by him in 1677. He made it for the pope, for gloryfying him and his regime.

The inspiration was coming from a book of the 15^th century; the "Hypneroto machia", written by Poliphilo. In this book is a garden of imagination: The imagination of a garden of dreaming and other weird thoughts. So Bernini decided to build one fountain with an elephant. That was his part of this masterpiece. The pope, who had the opinion that a statue was no statue without inscription, placed one by the fountain. It says that the choice of the elephant was not fortuitous; he wanted to show that solid wasdom must have been propped up by robust spirits.

This fountain is really nice and it is also a real historical monument.