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
Trevi Fountain was abandoned when the pope died. Though Bernini's project was never constructed, there are many Bernini touches in the fountain as it exists today. An early, influential model by Pietro da Cortona, preserved in the Albertina, Vienna, also exists, as do various early 18th century sketches, most unsigned, as well as a project attributed to Nicola Michetti one attributed to Ferdinando Fuga and a French design by Edmé Bouchardon. Competitions had become popular during the Baroque era to design buildings, fountains, as well as the Spanish Steps. In 1730 Pope Clement XII organized a contest in which Nicola Salvi initially