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Posted on Oct 16, 2025 / Travel

• The fountain sits at the end of the Aqua Virgo aqueduct which Romans built in 19 B.C., so the site bridges ancient engineering and Baroque spectacle.
• One of the decorative vases hides what Romans jokingly called the "Ace of Cups" which used to cover an ugly barber’s sign — tiny urban trolling from the 18th century.
• Nicola Salvi won a design competition and started work in the 1730s, but the fountain wasn't finished until 1762 after several sculptors and architects chipped in.
• About a million euros (give or take by year) are tossed in annually and that cash is collected for charity, not pocketed by the tourist industry.
• The myth of the coin throw was boosted by the 1954 song/movie "Three Coins in the Fountain," which helped turn a local ritual into global bait for visitors.
• The central figure is Oceanus, not Neptune, which is an easy mix-up but a fun quiz question for friends.
• Rome occasionally closes parts of the plaza for restorations or crowd-control projects, so the classic postcard scene sometimes gets a temporary modern makeover.
• The Trevi Fountain was financed by the Italian state lottery, so in a way, gambling helped create this beautiful masterpiece.
• A local barber was constantly complaining about the noise and mess during construction, so the architect, Nicola Salvi, put a huge stone vase (the "Ace of Cups") right in front of the barber's shop so he couldn't see the finished fountain from his window.
• In 2007, an activist turned the fountain's water red using a non-toxic dye as a form of protest. After a huge scare, the fountain was drained and cleaned without any lasting damage.
• The massive fountain is built from Travertine stone, which is the exact same material used to build the Colosseum.
• When actor Marcello Mastroianni died in 1996, the fountain's water was turned off and draped in black fabric to honor him and the classic scene he filmed there.
• It took a whopping 30 years to build the fountain, from 1732 to 1762, and the original architect, Nicola Salvi, died before he ever got to see his vision completed.
• The iconic fashion house Fendi actually sponsored a major, multimillion-euro restoration of the fountain from 2014 to 2015. They even held a fashion show on a plexiglass walkway built over the water.

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