Fontana del Tritone, Rome Deluge. The passage that Urban set Bernini to illustrate, was well known to all literate Roman contemporaries: Two finished terracotta "bozzetti" at the Detroit Institute of Arts, securely attributed to Bernini, reflect his exploration of the fountain's themes of the intertwined upended dolphins and the muscular, scaly-tailed Triton. The Triton Fountain is one of those evoked in Ottorino Respighi's "Fontane di Roma". The legend applied to Trevi Fountain has been extended to this: that any visitor who throws a coin into the water (while facing away from the fountain) will have guaranteed their return to Rome. The setting of the
Fountain of Neptune, Rome reduced dependence on urban fountains for drinking and washing purposes but increased their visual and political importance, especially following the creation of the Italian state with Rome as its capital after 1870. The fountain as it exists today was finally completed in 1878 by Antonio della Bitta, who added the imposing sculpture of "Neptune fighting with an octopus", and Gregorio Zappalà, who created the other sculptures, based on the mythological theme of the "Nereids with Cupids and walruses". This statuary was added following a competition in 1873, in order to balance that of the Moor Fountain on the south side